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Creative Corner => Campaign Settings and World-Building => Homebrew and House Rules (D&D) => Super Robot Wars d20 => Topic started by: oslecamo on September 13, 2012, 04:59:06 PM

Title: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on September 13, 2012, 04:59:06 PM
Ideas, questions and other similiar stuff goes here.

Topic of the week, get some setting fluff done! My current plan for now will be to shamelessly copy from the SRW OG setting, mix in some fantasy/D&D stereotypes, a touch of my own madness and see what happens.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: The-Mage-King on September 13, 2012, 10:30:13 PM
I suggest that you change the second post in the "Intro/Mech basics" thread to read like the following (yes, I'm still proofing. Because TYYYYPPOOOOOOOSSSSS!).


A note about mecha scale:
(click to show/hide)

Mecha Combat basics
(click to show/hide)


Combat between mechas and non-mechas.
(click to show/hide)

 :P


In the case of the fort save, liken it to a Massive Damage save. Makes sense.


I'll proof stuffs.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on September 14, 2012, 12:19:34 PM
Edited in your version, thanks!

Also, reduced the save DC to 15+Damage taken since 20+Damage taken felt a little too much in retrospective.

I'm not sure I get your "liken it to a Massive Damage save" comment. I didn't use massive damage rules because they're non-scaling, and I wanted to make it harder to resist, say, a WildWurger's Beetle Crusher than a simple Gespent's Punch.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: The-Mage-King on September 14, 2012, 12:50:29 PM
I mean add something saying that it's treated as massive damage for the purposes of saves.


Because I'm pretty sure there are a few things that give bonuses to saves v. massive damage, so...
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Garryl on September 14, 2012, 12:54:43 PM
Edited in your version, thanks!

Also, reduced the save DC to 15+Damage taken since 20+Damage taken felt a little too much in retrospective.

I'm not sure I get your "liken it to a Massive Damage save" comment. I didn't use massive damage rules because they're non-scaling, and I wanted to make it harder to resist, say, a WildWurger's Beetle Crusher than a simple Gespent's Punch.

Isn't that what losing hit points from damage taken is supposed to represent? Joe F. Soldier is going to die, save or not, from taking so much damage. But should Bear Grylls ß, the time-traveling cyborg commando archmage who fights with dragons and wrestles with Cthulhu really be taken out by a piece of steel just because it's 100 times his size?

With the current rules, unless you're fighting a mecha much lower level than you, you'll generally only make the save on a natural 20. With the reduced DC, you might make it from time to time at lower levels, but at higher levels damage still scales much faster than saving throws.

Edit: Actually, having looked at the damage values, I think I'm incorrect, at least at mid levels. I'll have to run the numbers properly when I have the chance. I'm still heavily against SoDs on every attack regardless, though.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: The-Mage-King on September 14, 2012, 01:07:37 PM
Hm... Why not make it DC 15 as base, scaling up with mecha size/Pilot level?



So a 1st level mech forces a DC 15 save, but a 10th level mech forces a DC 20? Or similar.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on September 14, 2012, 02:30:17 PM
I did tried to make the mecha damage don't scale too fast, so the save DCs shouldn't increase too much either (and remember you need to actually hit the target to force them to sav).

Making the saves DC just based on mecha size/Pilot would mean you rather use your smaller, faster firing weapons to deal with non-mecha targets. Which kinda makes sense now that I think about it.

Or perhaps I could simply make it that mechas deal 10x damage against non-mecha opponents (after DR), just as they take just 1/10th the damage from others (before DR).

Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Prime32 on September 15, 2012, 04:47:12 PM
Problems with the mecha vs non-mecha rules:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCVLF3-KuAI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ktk8ic3yfiw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awkMHi28E-4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YpJG3AcrtY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSxMI2iP8PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gFpVUcIvmI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdaGIFFT3e8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAizwLfZbUA

Also
Note: Mecha Mooks as PCs

This class is intended for NPC enemies, but it should be fine for a player to use it, as long as they're fine playing with 5 characters that can just perform basic attacks, whitout spirits/maneuvers or anything else but basic attacks, plus a lot of dead levels.
Well depending on how you handle multiclassing... (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Kh7uBEJbnE)
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on September 15, 2012, 06:49:42 PM
Those are some pretty persuassive arguments, so I removed both save-or-die and damage multipliers/reducers between mechas and non-mechas. The giant robots still have the advantage of bigger speed/reach and range, but if that warblade gets near that gespent, he'll crack it open with a good Stone Hammer now.

Also I can't believe I made the Mecha Mook class and didn't remember he could make the perfect basis for your usual 5-man team! Right now they tecnically can't multiclass, but will most definetely work on something along that line. Perhaps multiclass feats of some sort? You start as a squad of 5 mooks, then 2nd level Super Robot multiclass and can combine plus starting to get spirits and maneuvers.

Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: fye121 on March 09, 2013, 10:13:25 PM
I got a question. Maybe i miss it but what is the kind of action to reload ranged weapon using ammo?
Example: If i shot all 12 shot form the Mega beam riffle to reload it is a standard action , a full-action ?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on March 12, 2013, 06:59:24 AM
Fullround action, clarified it in the Real Robot list weapon section.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on April 25, 2013, 04:34:41 PM
Added in capstones for Real and Super pilots, plus a few more arsenal options.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on April 25, 2013, 04:41:04 PM
Does the Super Pilot ability let you have an extra Growth (to Colossal+)?

... 10d10 weapon with a plus 20 to hit and a 16-20 crit range. x3. That's... quite a lot. @_@
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on April 25, 2013, 05:28:26 PM
It also takes a lot of arsenal space and doesn't have Power/Rending.

Being able to go over specific HD caps wasn't intended, clarified.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on April 26, 2013, 01:01:42 AM
How do we get in/out of a mecha (sans the emergency escape pod)? Required action, mostly.
Can we fight with the cockpit open to have line of effect to our enemies at normal scale from within? (probably allowing them to damage you directly)?
How much spare space to store stuff within a mecha of your size in Mu, if enough space, can it have passengers? (On your lap, if needs be). Or even more than one pilot without becoming a ship. (a-la power rangers' combined super mecha)
Can a mecha be disabled so as to neutralize its pilot without destroying it?


Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Concerned Ninja Citizen on April 26, 2013, 01:21:53 AM
Could a shield arsenal item and/or upgrade be created? Some mecha use them.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on April 26, 2013, 05:51:05 AM
Good point on geting in/out, added it in.

The cocpkit isn't meant just to protect the pilot. It's also meant to protect the delicate control mechanisms. Anyone foolish enough to fight with an open cockpit can and will have his mecha instantly disabled the first time any enemy with two brain cells/transistors fires at them.

Clarified "storage space".

If the pilot is weak enough, you may able to knock him down with crits before the mecha itself is destroyed. Otherwise they're kinda stuck.

Could a shield arsenal item and/or upgrade be created? Some mecha use them.
Usually as in-built stuff.

Added a bunch of shields. Also buffed up the higher arsenals that grant a bonus to attack rolls.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Clanjos on April 26, 2013, 01:59:00 PM
Is there a feasible way to emulate interchangeable parts in battle, such as with Steel Jeeg? Or mechs that combine?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on April 26, 2013, 02:01:36 PM
Sad we can't go Kira Yamato-style and disable mechas left and right. Maybe some kind of mecha non-lethal damage.

Also, what about attacks that damage only living beings?
Do they affect pilots directly or do a mecha counts as living for the purpose of taking hits for the pilot. Or does the pilot count as non-living while inside a mecha?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on April 26, 2013, 02:27:27 PM
Is there a feasible way to emulate interchangeable parts in battle, such as with Steel Jeeg? Or mechs that combine?

That would fall in the "under development" part. :p

Sad we can't go Kira Yamato-style and disable mechas left and right. Maybe some kind of mecha non-lethal damage.
How you finish off an opponent's mecha is up to you. By all means claim you're just disabling key parts instead of exploding it into atoms. There's no pratical diference as far as destroyed mecha rules care.

Also, what about attacks that damage only living beings?
Do they affect pilots directly or do a mecha counts as living for the purpose of taking hits for the pilot. Or does the pilot count as non-living while inside a mecha?
Both shrug it off. Half the reason of encasing yourself in a massive steel coffin filled with unstable stuff is because at least it keeps pesky chemical weapons/ low radiations away.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on April 26, 2013, 07:27:05 PM
Besides the possibility to salvage the mecha.
By the way, when a mecha is destroyed, does the pod ejection's movement provokes an AoO?
Would the escape pod contain the storage space or is it lost in the wreckage?

It might be better if the storage space was static.
You don't want crazy strong characters with ridiculous light loads carrying buildings in their mecha.  :blush

It might be a good idea to have a general table of mecha functions here instead of splitting them between real and super.
It feels odd to have to go in the real robot page to find information on how super robots work. Like how energy is recharged.

Also, are androids ageless or do they eventually waste away?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on April 26, 2013, 07:33:28 PM
I see no problem with that. What's wrong with using mecha to transport buildings? :???
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Concerned Ninja Citizen on April 26, 2013, 07:45:45 PM
Nothing wrong with it if the mecha is carrying the building, like, in its arms.

If the building somehow magically fits inside the mecha... the laws of physics would like a word with you.

Also, it makes no sense the other way around, either. I'm a small sized character so there is somehow less space inside my mecha than there would be if I was bigger?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on April 26, 2013, 07:57:44 PM
Quote
Nothing wrong with it if the mecha is carrying the building, like, in its arms.

If the building somehow magically fits inside the mecha... the laws of physics would like a word with you.

Given that one show (Getter Robo Armageddon, I'm told) has "So much for the laws of physics!" as pretty much an exact quote, I still don't see the issue. Mecha break physics by dint of being human in shape. :p
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Prime32 on April 26, 2013, 08:42:45 PM
(click to show/hide)
Sorry, but this is bugging me.

That name (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newtype) refers to humans who have developed psychic powers, usually implied to be the next stage in evolution. UC Gundam calls them Newtypes, Gundam SEED calls it "enhanced spatial awareness" (Mu La Flaga's thing, not to be confused with Coordinators or the SEED Factor), Gundam 00 calls them True Innovators, Gundam AGE calls them X-Rounders, and Super Robot Wars OG calls them Psychodrivers (or just Psychics).

They have battle precognition at low levels, large-scale mind links at high levels, and can use special psychic equipment which improves their mech's power and response time (especially in response to strong emotions), or generates forcefields, or lets them control remote weapons like funnels (sometimes via telekinesis, but usually they're just too complex for normal pilots to handle without AI assistance). The closest D&D equivalent to awakening as a Newtype would be taking Psychic Warrior (or War Mind) levels.

The term is established enough that it's the name of a magazine, so using it for an artificial human is just confusing...
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on April 27, 2013, 08:42:43 AM
Besides the possibility to salvage the mecha.
The art of salvaging technology has improved quite a lot with the advancment of mechas and their increased destructive power. :p

By the way, when a mecha is destroyed, does the pod ejection's movement provokes an AoO?
No, clarified.

Would the escape pod contain the storage space or is it lost in the wreckage?
The "storage space" is free room inside the cockpit, so it's not lost.

It might be better if the storage space was static.
Not when pilots can have so much space as the mecha itself.

You don't want crazy strong characters with ridiculous light loads carrying buildings in their mecha.  :blush
Please, ever since the first Phantasy Star the characters were storing tank-fortresses on their pockets. :P

If your human-sized character is strong enough to carry a building as a light load, then screw it, he can find a way of fitting it inside his cockpit's spare space.

It might be a good idea to have a general table of mecha functions here instead of splitting them between real and super.
It feels odd to have to go in the real robot page to find information on how super robots work. Like how energy is recharged.
Dully noted.

Also, are androids ageless or do they eventually waste away?
An highly debated question. It's well known that androids can go on for centuries with basic maintenance, but most of the time they end up wrecked by some exterior force, so there's lack of data for long-term survival.  There's some records of Androids going for long periods of activity whitout stopping and/or maintenance that will indeed waste themselves down in less than half a millenia. If put under continuous stress they may not even last a century. The "longest-lived" android in known history would be Wren, that pops up in several major events that span over 5000 years, but many scholars claim that there's actually been not one but multiple "Wrens", all built as close in resemblance to its predecessor as possible.

Nothing wrong with it if the mecha is carrying the building, like, in its arms.

If the building somehow magically fits inside the mecha... the laws of physics would like a word with you.

Also, it makes no sense the other way around, either. I'm a small sized character so there is somehow less space inside my mecha than there would be if I was bigger?
Yes. Mechas are customized to the pilot. A smaller pilot will get a smaller cockpit, any leftover space will be spent in extra stablizing systems to stop him/her from being squashed like a bug against a windshield when the mecha moves.

(click to show/hide)
Sorry, but this is bugging me.

That name (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newtype) refers to humans who have developed psychic powers, usually implied to be the next stage in evolution. UC Gundam calls them Newtypes, Gundam SEED calls it "enhanced spatial awareness" (Mu La Flaga's thing, not to be confused with Coordinators or the SEED Factor), Gundam 00 calls them True Innovators, Gundam AGE calls them X-Rounders, and Super Robot Wars OG calls them Psychodrivers (or just Psychics).

They have battle precognition at low levels, large-scale mind links at high levels, and can use special psychic equipment which improves their mech's power and response time (especially in response to strong emotions), or generates forcefields, or lets them control remote weapons like funnels (sometimes via telekinesis, but usually they're just too complex for normal pilots to handle without AI assistance). The closest D&D equivalent to awakening as a Newtype would be taking Psychic Warrior (or War Mind) levels.

The term is established enough that it's the name of a magazine, so using it for an artificial human is just confusing...
Changed it to Numan then (Newearl for females, Newman for males).

As an aside, the easiest way of representing a psychodriver would be just to pick up Hidden Talent.

Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Nanshork on April 27, 2013, 02:56:24 PM
Every time you edit the Mecha Basics post I have to go through it and figure out what you changed.  :P

Edit: What does the Accel Spirit actually do?  I'm assuming it adds that distance to your movement speed but it doesn't actually say.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on April 27, 2013, 03:30:30 PM
Alright. Thanks.

Does it mean an Android can take the Ancient Temple discipline?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on April 27, 2013, 04:54:39 PM
Yes. Tales of the hungry ghost mistress and her blades have crossed the stars to other worlds.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on April 27, 2013, 05:17:14 PM
Neat.
Hm, is there a way to increase Upgrade points for Super Robots that I have missed?

The Nanomachine and Mysterious Powers need 5 upgrade points for their last version, but since all upgrade points must be spent as soon as they are acquired, they cannot be saved to gain more than 4 points to pay for them.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Concerned Ninja Citizen on April 27, 2013, 05:24:15 PM
Might be a good idea to allow Super Pilots to switch around their upgrades at some point (possibly every level?) which would also answer the above question.

Quote from: Mecha vs Non Mecha Combat
A mecha can choose to use a single-target weapon to damage all non-mecha  targets smaller than himself in a single 5 mu square.

How does this work? Is it an attack or a damaging area effect? If the former is it a single roll compared to all ACs or multiple rolls? If the latter, is there a save and what is it?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on April 27, 2013, 05:28:55 PM
Recovering 40% of your max HP every round is already pretty strong, so I'll just cap it at that and call it a day. Changed the example as well.

Area attack you roll once and compare against the AC of everybody inside.

Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on April 27, 2013, 05:33:13 PM
Ships have HD? :huh

Kind of amusing that they start off with Arsenal space but can't get anything in there until level 4.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on April 27, 2013, 05:46:26 PM
You could earlier if you were a multiclass. :p

Fixed typo.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Concerned Ninja Citizen on April 27, 2013, 10:18:06 PM
What happens to a Super Robot when its pilot dies in a manner that does not damage the robot?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on April 28, 2013, 04:29:45 AM
Evidently it will lay in wait of a new hotblooded pilot to pick it up and slowly work to unlock its full potential again. :p
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on April 28, 2013, 04:45:56 AM
When you get your mecha destroyed and do the redeeming quest, do you have to get the same mecha as the one that was destroyed?

Also, can an Android use One With the Machine with a Moon Vanguard's nanoarmor?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on April 28, 2013, 05:31:48 AM
You can get a new mecha.

I'll say yes to Android with nano armor as well.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on April 28, 2013, 08:41:58 AM
Thanks.
Just to make sure I get One With the Machine, is the mecha's own hp 'saved' while the android takes the hits? As if, when it leaves the ability, it gets back to the hp it had before OwtM.
I could be that the damage
If so, is the mecha destroyed when the android's hp reaches zero or is the mecha getting its 'saved' hp back when the android dies within it?

You also made me notice that bit about Mecha weapons always counting as [Force] effects whenever it would be benefical for them.
Does that mean that by counting as a force effects, their damage can also count as force damage?

Because if that is so, all mecha weapons can bypass DR altogether.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on April 28, 2013, 02:55:34 PM
One With the Machine replaces the mecha's HP. That means that yes if the android exits the mecha, it gets back to the HP it had before.

However if the mecha is reduced to 0 HP while One With the Machine is active, the mecha is destroyed regardless of how much HP it normally had. The android may still be kicking if it didn't drop below -9.

Put in clause that mecha weapons counting as force effects doesn't make them bypass DR.

Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Concerned Ninja Citizen on April 28, 2013, 07:58:40 PM
Evidently it will lay in wait of a new hotblooded pilot to pick it up and slowly work to unlock its full potential again. :p

How does this interact with this passage from Super Pilot?

Quote
If you're piloting another person's super robot (either burrowed or stolen), you can use any maneuvers that super robot knows without you knowing them yourself, but you use the super robot's level instead of your own level for the purposes of those maneuvers.

Does a Super Robot stop being "yours" when you die?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on April 28, 2013, 11:06:52 PM
Speaking of which, I just thought of something; if you have the leadership feat or otherwise gain the ability to have followers or apprentices. Can they have levels in Mecha Mook?
It could be interesting to go in their junk-mecha with them when you're in a bind when yours blow up or if you don't have a mecha to begin with.

Also, on the subject of Relationship feats, what happens if the person you chose when you took the feat dies or if you stop having the required feeling for that person.
Those feat have no actual requirement and so do not need you to still have the relevant feelings to still work, and a dead selected one may still be returned to life. Normally.
Still, is there a process by which this feat may be realigned to someone else?
This would be quite useful in these kind of online pbp games when you never know if the player whose character you linked yourself to won't go MIA for months without warning.
Otherwise the safest targets of those feats would be DMPCs and cohorts.

The Extra upgrade option of the Super Robot grants an extra in-built weapon. Where do we select those? The Arsenal? If so, is that extra weapon taking arsenal space as well?

Mighty refers to a main weapon. How do we determine which is the main weapon? Even the Real Robot don't seem to have one.

Sentient; Supporting states that the robot itself provides bonuses. It seems to imply that the robot is spending the immediate action, not the pilot, and can more or less grant those once per round even if the pilot is inside it.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on April 29, 2013, 07:27:42 AM
Quote
Stealth:The mecha can hide whitout actualy having anything to hide behind, even in the middle of the sky or the empty space.

Can this basically be taken to mean that it works as the Hide in Plain Sight feature?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Concerned Ninja Citizen on April 29, 2013, 05:11:16 PM
The Extra upgrade option of the Super Robot grants an extra in-built weapon. Where do we select those? The Arsenal? If so, is that extra weapon taking arsenal space as well?

It means an extra basic weapon of the type described in the Super Robot base stats spoiler. That is, it's a melee weapon with base damage of 1d6+str.

Mighty refers to a main weapon. How do we determine which is the main weapon? Even the Real Robot don't seem to have one.

Main Weapon is an upgrade.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on April 29, 2013, 06:31:22 PM
Ah, I see! Thanks. Totally makes sense.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on April 29, 2013, 06:44:43 PM
Evidently it will lay in wait of a new hotblooded pilot to pick it up and slowly work to unlock its full potential again. :p

How does this interact with this passage from Super Pilot?

Quote
If you're piloting another person's super robot (either burrowed or stolen), you can use any maneuvers that super robot knows without you knowing them yourself, but you use the super robot's level instead of your own level for the purposes of those maneuvers.

Does a Super Robot stop being "yours" when you die?
Yes. Just like the rest of your posessions.

Speaking of which, I just thought of something; if you have the leadership feat or otherwise gain the ability to have followers or apprentices. Can they have levels in Mecha Mook?
It could be interesting to go in their junk-mecha with them when you're in a bind when yours blow up or if you don't have a mecha to begin with.
Yes. Can't say it is very safe to fly around in one of those yourself tough, may be better to just get into an ally's mecha.

Also, on the subject of Relationship feats, what happens if the person you chose when you took the feat dies or if you stop having the required feeling for that person.
Those feat have no actual requirement and so do not need you to still have the relevant feelings to still work, and a dead selected one may still be returned to life. Normally.
Still, is there a process by which this feat may be realigned to someone else?
This would be quite useful in these kind of online pbp games when you never know if the player whose character you linked yourself to won't go MIA for months without warning.
Otherwise the safest targets of those feats would be DMPCs and cohorts.
Easy retraining would kinda defeat the whole idea behind "Strong feelings give you power".

There's regular retraining feats in a splat somewhere are they not? I believe those would work well for geting over an old love/rivarly/friendship.

Also I already pointed out absent PCs can be controlled by active PCs. Having a relationship feat would actually give you priority on that.

Sentient; Supporting states that the robot itself provides bonuses. It seems to imply that the robot is spending the immediate action, not the pilot, and can more or less grant those once per round even if the pilot is inside it.
As per sentient, the Super robot can still only take actions on its own when you're outside of it. That was more meant for those pilots that prefer to stand at the side of their super robots rather than inside them.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on April 29, 2013, 06:51:52 PM
Excellent. Thanks.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on April 30, 2013, 12:05:31 AM
A detail I was wondering; wouldn't it be better to have the damage of a critical hit deal as much damage to the pilot as it would deal to the mecha instead of just normal damage to the pilot and the multiplied damage to the mecha? I mean, you hit the bloody cockpit. I think that's usually an instant kill in mecha stuff.
Mostly because I think a pilot would normally have a much easier time healing himself than healing his mecha. I'd rather have my pilot eat the normal damage than have my mecha eat it instead.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on April 30, 2013, 02:36:28 AM
With mecha as comparatively durable as they are, that would make critical hits really bad news. Go check how high the damage output on weapons can get. Or ships' beam cannons. >_>;
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on April 30, 2013, 03:05:07 AM
I have and I don't really see a problem with it. Mecha pilots have no shortage of means to avoid/reduce damage either.
You may be right, still.

Currently looking for means to save a mecha from blowing up at 0 hp. One with the Machine doesn't let you die for the mecha so maybe there is some die-for-you effect somewhere I can use. Mmh.  :plot

...Also, once your mecha gains sentience, would it be considered weird, or maybe even a little creepy, to have relationship feats with your mecha as the target?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on April 30, 2013, 03:58:27 AM
It doesn't really make sense--cockpits being damaged at all are represented by the critical hit harming you.

Somehow, I don't think having a relationship feat with your mecha is going to be acceptable (rival and love are mind-boggling).

What's the carrying capacity for ships?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on April 30, 2013, 04:16:17 AM
Aye, but as is you only get the normal damage. The critical damage goes to the mecha. A x3 crit weapon would harm the mecha more than it hurts the pilot.
Though I've watched a few mecha pilot deaths just now and usually when they get the cockpit both the mecha explodes with the pilot, or the pilot gets killed by a bigass weapon and the mecha explodes afterwards, so the mecha suffering much from the attack makes sense.

I don't think it will be either. I think rival/love could work when the pilot is a robot too, though.
Dying for the mecha in my case might be easier since I more or less become the mecha by having it use my hp.
Not sure some construct resurrection ability could resurrect it.
It would be akin to the enemy thinking he has defeated the mecha and destroyed it, but somehow there is STILL a tiny little bit energy left within, enough for the spark of power remaining to become a hot blooded inferno thanks to the strong emotions of the pilot (And maybe a flashback or two. Or three.) that somehow survived the mecha's destruction without using the escape pod. And for some reason now it is strong enough to defeat that great enemy.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on April 30, 2013, 06:35:11 AM
Aye, but as is you only get the normal damage. The critical damage goes to the mecha. A x3 crit weapon would harm the mecha more than it hurts the pilot.

Given that 'critical' does not mean 'direct hit on the cockpit' but rather 'damaged vital/delicate systems', it makes sense for the mecha to take waaaaaaaaay more damage.

In which case, you have unleashed a monstrosity whose only priority is to follow orders from you onto the battlefield, without your being there to instruct it. :p

Oh, hey, found a scene I was looking for a while ago. (http://vimeo.com/58406924)
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on April 30, 2013, 01:02:35 PM
Wondering, is there something on mechas that stop people from just teleporting into another's mecha?
Like using a dimension door, or phasing in from the etereal plane. Or otherwise appear in your cockpit to duke it out with you from inside.
And if you get attacking inside the cockpit, are you at a disadvantage if you don't stop piloting your mecha while getting attacked?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on April 30, 2013, 06:35:36 PM
Okay, observation: there's a line in the Main Weapon upgrade that specifies what happens if an in-built weapon is Heavy. You can't get a heavy in-built weapon (save for Real Robot multiclassing, which just seems weirder: Real Robots get a bonus effect out of a Super upgrade?)

Regeneration seems hellishly overkill. Get it fully upgraded with a Super Robot that's poured all its points into health and regeneration? 160 (+1.75)  HP back. Per turn. Get two things like that, without any save or die effects, and they'll be firing away forever...

And now... a short version (because it's too late at night for the long version) of something that's been bugging me all day: Real Robots just seem plain better to go for than the Supers. They get power jumps, yeah, but the tiers are fully competitive right before upgrading, and they get better Arsenal stuff at the same time as better robots. The gap just never seems to close.

Hell, take their class abilities: average difference of 1 hp isn't going to make a big difference, both have full BAB and one good save, Real Pilot has more skillpoints, same proficiencies. Okay. Next? Well, the Real Pilot gets more bonus feats, but less spirit and doesn't have the favoured maneuver ability. Fair? Doesn't really seem like it: one bonus feat all but erodes the difference in spirit, leaving another two to do whatever with over the super pilot. Maybe the +4 to Pilot Level of one maneuver (and +3 to another, etc.) might make up the gap? Not really expecting so with the large save bonuses everywhere, honestly. And finally, capstone: the super pilot gets 4 upgrade points that cannot exceed HD caps, the real pilot gets another Arsenal weapon.

See, there's a bit of a problem: if a Super Pilot puts 63 points into the straight numerical bonuses, that leaves them another 17 points to play with. Now, what upgrades can be achieved with 4 points? Growth? Well, if you haven't spent it before, that's straight from Medium to Colossal. Higher damage (do the Arsenal weapons even scale?) but suddenly all those targeter upgrades and AC boosts are pretty necessary. Transform? Well, the one option might be handy. Basically, you get a small bonus (because they can be picked at any level) to any one thing. Now, if I'm a Real Pilot? I can grab any of the special weapons if they'd be handy. Any basic weapon that would be useful but isn't already squeezed into the mecha. +6 to dodge and reflex saves (firmly beating whatever the Super Pilot can achieve with the same thing), +8 to all my attack rolls, or--and here's one of the most ridiculous--+8 to dodge and reflex, +10 mu to speed, +10mu to range, and +4 to attack rolls.

Real Robots also have better weapons to start with (aside from anything else, the fact that they get multiple types and everything automatically has a weapon doing more than 1d6 damage or special abilities) and, in general, more access to abilities (especially weapon). The one thing they cannot pull off is regeneration. Everything else? They're going to do just as well or better.

(click to show/hide)
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on April 30, 2013, 07:07:59 PM
I tried both both options and made myself diagrams to evaluate which was the better option and I went with super robot in the end.
Perhaps by the latest levels real robots would get the upper hand again but it would be tight. The Supers' upgrades are quite excellent. They get more HP and energy than reals, which allows them to spend them for maneuvers and energy-hungry weapons more freely. What they lack in weapons they gain in style and durability. Being one step under in arsenal isn't so terrible considering the reals are inferior in everything else but weaponry and that's arguable because in most instances all you need is one good weapon or two. Also, Sentience.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Concerned Ninja Citizen on April 30, 2013, 07:20:43 PM
I started writing a response to this on the Phantasy Star campaign board but it would be more appropriate here I think.

Super Robots have superior HP and Energy at every level of Real Robot from II to V and it's only at Real Robot VII that they're actually outclassed in that department.

Quick rundown,

II: Gaurlion has 20/20, Huckbein has 30/20, Super Robot has 40/40

III: Altiesen 60/20, Weiss Writter 30/40, Super Robot 70/70

IV: Astelion 40/60, Boxer 80/80, Super Robot 100/100

V: Wild Wurger 100/100, Wild Falken 80/120, Super Robot 130/130

VI: Ash Saber 150/100, Rappie Cage 200/200, Super Robot 160/160

VII: Altiesen Riese 400/200, Alegrias 200/300, Super Robot 190/190

And that's both base stats before upgrades and stats at the level the new real robot is unlocked.

Given that many of the weapons real robots get built in or from arsenal require energy, as do maneuvers, as does moving, the energy advantage that super robots have is a big deal. It is compounded by Reactor being easier to access for Super Robots. They get Reactor II at level 3, III at lv6 and 4 at lv10. Real robots get reactor II at lv7, III at lv13 and IV at lv19.

Also, Super Robots can have pretty much equal Arsenal space with Real Robots from lv8 on and by lv20 they can have 175 by spending 5 upgrade points. That's more than any real robot. They're only 1 grade of arsenal behind so they can use that space to pretty effectively blunt the advantage arsenal gives the real robot.

Some of the other comparrisons are more complicated but Super Robots definitely have the advantage in a few important areas and their advantage is largest in the mid levels, which is where most campaigns are played.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on April 30, 2013, 07:39:53 PM
'Gain in style'.

They're all built to be generalists. Despite being supposedly more customisable. As for more HP? One of the two VII Real Robots has exactly 5 less HP. They can get 100 more Energy, but there's no reason to ever do that, because the most you're going to spend is 45 (real robots can get the 70-energy cannon, but Super Robots pretty much just have maneuvers--they have no energy-hungry weapons) and if you use high-level maneuvers constantly, you're better off investing in regenerating it than having a bigger stockpile.

One good weapon or two? They have that by default. Before upgrading.

Don't really agree that the upgrades are 'quite excellent'. Aside from the straight numerical bonuses, you either spent points on weapon properties, flight (whilst normally brilliant, the inbuilt tendency for anything that doesn't have flight to have hugely powerful ranged weapons in this makes it less excellent), or size changes. Being bigger is the only way to have weapon damage keep up, too, which counteracts the numerical bonuses.

Sentient is less useful outside of a gestalt, simply because of the inadvisability, in general, of standing outside your mecha in a class which works best if you stay in the damn thing.

(click to show/hide)

Hilariously, I was focusing on the tier-I Real Robots and tier VII.

Though this raises a question--do Super Robots use energy to fly?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Concerned Ninja Citizen on April 30, 2013, 07:52:56 PM
Super Robots are also much better at regenerating energy than real robots and the reason a bigger base energy is better, even if you're not using all of it, is that reactor regenerates a portion of your total. A larger total means more regenerated, means you can go longer without running down.

The real robot list is the only place mecha flying is discussed but it does say "all mecha" so I'm thinking that's a yes. That section should probably be copied into the mecha basics post. Also, it says that flying drains energy but it says that in the context of explaining the speed stat. Seems like flying is the default movement mode. Is it possible to move without flying and thus without losing energy? If so, does such movement work off the same speed stat or a different one? This should probably also be addressed in the mecha basics post.

If you look only at I and VII, Super Robots will appear to suck. They're much better in between those two.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on April 30, 2013, 08:00:42 PM
I still take issue with the fact Super Robots draw from a modular system that's based off of Real Robots. :/

Because it's depressing to invest upgrade points into Hyperspace Containment (or is it Storage?) because that translates one upgrade point into the equivalent of half a dozen or more. And it isn't even thematically appropriate.  :-\

High-levelled Regeneration/Nanomachines/whatever it's called seems likely to lead to attrition problems.

The most Super Robot-y stuff is in Burning Justice... which is kind of weird; you would think lasers are built in. Much of that just seems like a way of getting ranged attacks, though (and it looks very strange for the school to effectively give you better hardware, when the other three schools are all sticking to 'use what you have better' type stuff)

Maybe I'm overthinking this. It just seems... weird that the Super Robot choices will end up so sameish.

Random Balance Thing: I've been looking at it, and increased energy storage (for a Super Robot) is pointless. Reactor II is enough. Aside from levels 1 and 3, you always regenerate as much or more energy than your highest-level maneuver costs, so energy total becomes more of a buffer. Specifically, it's because then your energy regenerated goes up by 6 every two levels, starting at 3, whilst maneuver cost only goes up by 5.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on May 01, 2013, 04:03:09 AM
Not necessarily pointless. Especially when you want to use your highest strike maneuver, maybe also your highest boost/counter maneuver, and maybe use your great speed, and perhaps a main weapon.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Concerned Ninja Citizen on May 01, 2013, 04:48:14 AM
Random Balance Thing: I've been looking at it, and increased energy storage (for a Super Robot) is pointless. Reactor II is enough. Aside from levels 1 and 3, you always regenerate as much or more energy than your highest-level maneuver costs, so energy total becomes more of a buffer. Specifically, it's because then your energy regenerated goes up by 6 every two levels, starting at 3, whilst maneuver cost only goes up by 5.

Besides what Anomander mentioned there's also arsenal weapons that cost energy and the special weapons that drain energy when they hit you. I think you're seriously underestimating how much energy you are likely to need on a given turn. 
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on May 01, 2013, 05:17:31 AM
Random Balance Thing: I've been looking at it, and increased energy storage (for a Super Robot) is pointless. Reactor II is enough. Aside from levels 1 and 3, you always regenerate as much or more energy than your highest-level maneuver costs, so energy total becomes more of a buffer. Specifically, it's because then your energy regenerated goes up by 6 every two levels, starting at 3, whilst maneuver cost only goes up by 5.

Wait what? How? Mecha maneuvers cost 5 times the level of the maneuver in energy. Your highest level maneuvers thus costs 45 energy. You need like almost 250 energy for Reactor 2 (20% energy regen) to cover that and come out roughly even.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on May 01, 2013, 05:23:38 AM
You can't actually use all of these things in one turn (Main Weapon and Arsenal weapons are cheap to use, too) and this is on top of having Level x10 energy.

I think I'd still rather upgrade reactors than expand capacity. At level 5, the maximum is 25 a turn, for 10 points. At level 10, it's 50 (highest single expenditure is 25) and at level 20 it's 100 and that number is now 45. This is the amount that comes back a turn, so even if it's hugely drained there's still a lot of options next turn. Energy boosts? It can double your capacity, but you burn through it much quicker, and you end up investing more to get the maximum out.

Energy Drain seems worse for large energy reserves as opposed to regeneration. You're getting less back.

Hmm... spreadsheet time. Going to check stuff.

Random Balance Thing: I've been looking at it, and increased energy storage (for a Super Robot) is pointless. Reactor II is enough. Aside from levels 1 and 3, you always regenerate as much or more energy than your highest-level maneuver costs, so energy total becomes more of a buffer. Specifically, it's because then your energy regenerated goes up by 6 every two levels, starting at 3, whilst maneuver cost only goes up by 5.

Wait what? How? Mecha maneuvers cost 5 times the level of the maneuver in energy. Your highest level maneuvers thus costs 45 energy. You need like almost 250 energy for Reactor 2 (20% energy regen) to cover that and come out roughly even.

Mecha regenerate 1/10th of their energy per turn by default. If Reactor isn't additive, Reactor I is effectively useless.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Concerned Ninja Citizen on May 01, 2013, 05:50:22 AM
Why are you assuming a maximum of 1 maneuver/ round? The schools all have boosts and counters. You're not accounting for movement, either. 

It's not a choice between reactor and capacity in any case. You clearly do both to some degree.

The fact that mecha regenerate energy without the reactor property really needs to go in the mecha basics post. This was the first I'd heard of it.

In fact, it makes no sense to make "Reactor" a special property that starts at I when mecha already regenerate that much automatically. Reactor should be an inherent property with all mecha having reactor I, and the upgrades/arsenal should improve it.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on May 01, 2013, 06:06:47 AM
A detail I was wondering; wouldn't it be better to have the damage of a critical hit deal as much damage to the pilot as it would deal to the mecha instead of just normal damage to the pilot and the multiplied damage to the mecha? I mean, you hit the bloody cockpit. I think that's usually an instant kill in mecha stuff.
Mostly because I think a pilot would normally have a much easier time healing himself than healing his mecha. I'd rather have my pilot eat the normal damage than have my mecha eat it instead.

Too bad, mechas are designed to protect the pilot, not the other way around.


...Also, once your mecha gains sentience, would it be considered weird, or maybe even a little creepy, to have relationship feats with your mecha as the target?
Mechas, even if sentient, just as intelligent equipment are not individuals.

What's the carrying capacity for ships?

How much you can fit inside.

I tried both both options and made myself diagrams to evaluate which was the better option and I went with super robot in the end.
You actually multiclassed into real robot to get a bunch  of extra HP, energy and arsenal space.

The real robot list is the only place mecha flying is discussed but it does say "all mecha" so I'm thinkig that's a yes. That section should probably be copied into the mecha basics post. Also, it says that flying drains energy but it says that in the context of explaining the speed stat. Seems like flying is the default movement mode. Is it possible to move without flying and thus without losing energy? If so, does such movement work off the same speed stat or a different one? This should probably also be addressed in the mecha basics post.

All mechas have base speeds, flying speeds are always extra. It cannot be adressed more than that.


You can't actually use all of these things in one turn (Main Weapon and Arsenal weapons are cheap to use, too) and this is on top of having Level x10 energy.
As already pointed out, you also burn energy for flying and then there's stuff like the Mighty upgrade and using multiple maneuvers in a single round.

Mecha regenerate 1/10th of their energy per turn by default. If Reactor isn't additive, Reactor I is effectively useless.
It is additive.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Concerned Ninja Citizen on May 01, 2013, 06:11:04 AM
All mechas have base speeds, flying speeds are always extra. It cannot be adressed more than that.

You could put it in the mecha basics post.

It would also be good to phrase this portion:

Quote
All mechas are equiped with thrusters of some kind that allow them to fly at their base speed on their own turns, but they must end their turn on a surface or fall when their turn ends, unless they're in space. Mechas with a flight speed can fly all the time when on a planet's surface. Either way, flight consumes 1 energy for each 5 mu moved. A mecha reduced to 0 energy falls or is rendered immobile if in space.

"that grant them a flight speed equal to their base speed"

That way it is clear that the flight speed and the base speed are seperate things. The way it is currently written it can be read to say that the flight speed is the base speed and thus all movement costs energy.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on May 01, 2013, 06:15:35 AM
Yeah, I realised there's extra costs. So far I have four pages on this thing. >_>;

Not helped by the fact it likes glitching on me.

Anyway... back to working on it.

Though I would like to know how you could manage to use all of this stuff in one round (which, by the way, looks like you'll be getting two rounds out of it, best case scenario)

Edit: Yeah, one round if you just blast everything you have (three top-level maneuvers, maximum flight, fully upgraded main weapon, etc.) and haven't upgraded energy, two if you have. Time until you can redo it: 2 rounds and 5 rounds, respectively. That's... what, average of 1/3 of the time and... 3/12 of the time? Okay, it's a smaller difference than I was expecting, I'll admit (but I haven't taken energy drain into account, which honestly would be worse with less regeneration as it takes longer to recover. Also because there's a fort save, so it's kind of... unpredictable).

That's 20th level. 15th, 10th, and 1st level, you can't use everything (three maneuvers of the highest level you have access to, maximum movement, energy-using arsenal stuff, and fully upgraded main weapon) at once. But your regeneration is too slow without Reactor to make it feasible to use anything over the long term...

Since mecha get such high HP, and there's a comparative lack of save-or-die stuff here, I'm inclined to view things as lasting longer than just the few rounds.

But... it bothers me, still: they get increasingly generic the more I look at it. Having good weapons requires either large energy expenditure or being larger, and both of those require other things to not be a death sentence. Gaaaaah.

... really annoyed at the Real Robot with vastly higher DR and Natural Armour than a mecha eight times its size can even get at, though with all the power and rending stuff dodge is probably more useful... hmm... probably time to respec the Yatagarasu, though.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on May 01, 2013, 12:24:34 PM
Improved the base HP/energy of all real robots between II and VI.

Since mecha get such high HP, and there's a comparative lack of save-or-die stuff here, I'm inclined to view things as lasting longer than just the few rounds.
That's the plan at least.

But... it bothers me, still: they get increasingly generic the more I look at it. Having good weapons requires either large energy expenditure or being larger, and both of those require other things to not be a death sentence. Gaaaaah.

By all means sugest new upgrade options for the Super Robots. The original plan was to add new crazy options as inspiration kicked in, but alas, it never came. :P
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on May 01, 2013, 01:09:48 PM
Quote
You actually multiclassed into real robot to get a bunch  of extra HP, energy and arsenal space.
Yep. But I chose to go with way more Super R levels than Reals. I went with super robot in the end.  Will look again now that the second and third real tiers have been upgraded.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on May 01, 2013, 01:18:29 PM
Missed this one the other time.

Wondering, is there something on mechas that stop people from just teleporting into another's mecha?
Like using a dimension door, or phasing in from the etereal plane. Or otherwise appear in your cockpit to duke it out with you from inside.
And if you get attacking inside the cockpit, are you at a disadvantage if you don't stop piloting your mecha while getting attacked?
You can try to teleport inside somebody else's mecha. However due to its internal structure, and the fact there's plenty of parts moving around in the interior means chances are that you'll end up attempting to materialize inside something solid and be shunted outside.

Similar problem for ethereal. You can pass trough it, but actually geting into the cockpit and back into the material in time is a trick against all odds.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on May 01, 2013, 01:40:22 PM
An upgrade to make a weapon an area attack? Pretty much every Real but one from level four onwards has something like that. And whilst there are some Arsenal weapons with the property, a short range, low power shotgun is the only option before level 13. Then there's the Remote Slasher... and I honestly have no idea what that is meant to be. :???

I wonder if it would be possible to have some sort of mutually exclusive upgrades for weapons? Like something that changes the die type from d6 but is mutually exclusive with Mighty (so, in the weapon size/damage charts, move from shortspear downwards to longswords, bastard swords, greatswords). Need to work out how they compare (for mecha of different sizes). Hmm... (also work out what the hell to do about the fact bastard sword damage improves faster than greatsword damage beyond colossal)
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on May 01, 2013, 02:23:27 PM
You can try to teleport inside somebody else's mecha. However due to its internal structure, and the fact there's plenty of parts moving around in the interior means chances are that you'll end up attempting to materialize inside something solid and be shunted outside.

Similar problem for ethereal. You can pass trough it, but actually geting into the cockpit and back into the material in time is a trick against all odds.

Doesn't sound so complicated once you know exactly where the pilot is within the mecha.
As to ethereality/incorporeality, you don't have to re-materialize to be a threat. Once the pilot is in sight and within line of effect, you can do stuff to him.

What changed in the races?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on May 01, 2013, 02:30:57 PM
An upgrade to make a weapon an area attack? Pretty much every Real but one from level four onwards has something like that. And whilst there are some Arsenal weapons with the property, a short range, low power shotgun is the only option before level 13. Then there's the Remote Slasher... and I honestly have no idea what that is meant to be. :???
Well, the Burning Justice school has plenty of area attacks, but I could see that.

Remote slashers are basically mecha-sized shurikens with auto-spinners or something like that. :p

You can try to teleport inside somebody else's mecha. However due to its internal structure, and the fact there's plenty of parts moving around in the interior means chances are that you'll end up attempting to materialize inside something solid and be shunted outside.

Similar problem for ethereal. You can pass trough it, but actually geting into the cockpit and back into the material in time is a trick against all odds.

Doesn't sound so complicated once you know exactly where the pilot is within the mecha.
As to ethereality/incorporeality, you don't have to re-materialize to be a threat. Once the pilot is in sight and within line of effect, you can do stuff to him.
That's where the "moving components" part comes in. No mecha is static. In battle it is constant movement inside and out.

As for ethereal, even if you don't want to return to the material, good luck geting said line of sight.

Just like you cannot teleport yourself inside somebody else's stomach/heart just because they're considerably bigger than you, or enter ethereal inside their body and attempt to target their vital organs.

What changed in the races?
Clarifying that the android's personal weapon doesn't carry over to the mecha she pilots.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on May 01, 2013, 02:39:00 PM
Well, it has the Drill Rocket Punch, but what if I was drawing from the other school? :p

It's kind of unfortunate that you put most of the mechanical upgrades into the school, since it leaves less to suggest.

It seems that, fully upgraded (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AsurXelXBiG3dENyWFVIMGJMakI0WTdFZk1DYmlLT0E#gid=0),  Mighty is always superior. +4 to +24 for four upgrades isn't bad, though; it just tends to lose its impact. Would probably be more energy and upgrade-efficient, if less outright powerful.

Also, Bastard Swords become a real bitch beyond Colossal. >_>;
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on May 01, 2013, 02:49:06 PM
Not sure whether or not you actually cannot port into the body of a large but I get what you mean.

The effects I had in mind can teleport you next to your target, so no matter how much it moves in there you don't have to decide where in there you teleport. You just do and right next to it, so even if entering solid material the closest space would be next to the pilot.
Another effect in mind is a reversal teleportation that switches your place with the target, so the pilot would be outside and the user inside the mecha.

Edit: Nevermind. It technically works, but for practical reasons it just doesn't.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Clanjos on May 01, 2013, 04:06:17 PM
Hm... Combining mecha are a staple, but this is proving difficult. Perhaps they start out at Mecha (Small) or (Tiny) and combine into something at a more reasonable size. The more components going in, the larger it becomes. Not sure how to handle the individual pilots though- maybe they need to upgrade their mechas to add more docking points for additional mechs in the combination.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on May 01, 2013, 04:13:12 PM
The biggest problem with Combining Mecha looks like it would be getting multiple people... and then making it worth it, because they would hardly get number of people x actions. Hmm.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on May 01, 2013, 06:56:37 PM
My skeleton plan for the Combining Robot Team would be something along this lines:
-You get 3-5 pilots, each with a minor vehicle.
-They can combine into an extra-super robot, but that is stressing for the machines, so they can only hold it up for some rounds every day/hour/something. You can end it earlier than usual to save up uses, being even viable combine/divide/combine again during combat. Perhaps it just drains energy like crazy while disabling all energy recovery.
-The combining robot works like a super robot, except its upgrades are spread out evenly among the diferent team member vehicles when separated.
-Like in a ship, secondary pilots can only help with spirits. However you can swap who is leading the robot with swift/move action.
-Custom school where when one pilot uses a maneuver, others can help if they also know it. All of the team pilot members know the same maneuvers. This helps them be useful when separated, but gets even better when they're combined.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on May 01, 2013, 07:01:36 PM
So, bigger team = stronger robot (due to more upgrade points)?

Hardest part seems to be not making it possible to specialise in being the 'leader' and therefore turning the combined time into a one-man show. Hmm.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on May 01, 2013, 07:10:24 PM
All of the team pilots are under control of the same player. There'll probably be a leader, but even then they each will be quite weak individually compared to other pilots.

If you pick less "parts", they simply get more upgrades. Think of Getter HRobo, where even separated their fighter jets are quite good.

Hmm, have to remember to add a feat to allow a single pilot to keep the whole thing going if things come to worst. :p
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on May 01, 2013, 07:13:34 PM
Huh, I thought that this was going to be multiple players rather than one. Because... uh... four or five sets of actions and the ability to combine into a mecha better than anything the other two classes can get, and five characters? You're basically a one-man party. :/
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on May 01, 2013, 07:25:29 PM
Well. Let's see.
Here's a draft, probably flawed as it was thought up rather quickly and I don't have much time for it right now.

(click to show/hide)

Argh. 4 posts already got in before I could finish!
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on May 01, 2013, 07:39:24 PM
Quote
The merged mecha would be the size of the biggest mecha +1 per additional mecha.

Doesn't add up. Large is twice the size of Medium, but four times the size of Small, and Huge is four and eight times, respectively.

The thing with those rules... is that you end up with a ludicrously overpowered robot in base stats and action economy (can take a move action and several fullround actions? Awesome) and you single out both one person to have control of the mecha and one of your class features.

Three or four pilots should be enough to have every possible upgrade maxed, and you'll have 40% HP and 50% Energy regeneration per round online at level 3.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on May 01, 2013, 07:45:30 PM
Yeah, plus it goes completely bonkers with leadership in that you only need one "main" guy and then an army of 1st level pilots to sky-rocket your stuff. Combining robot just doesn't work if only one of the pilot really matters and the rest are just fodder to stack up on top.

Huh, I thought that this was going to be multiple players rather than one. Because... uh... four or five sets of actions and the ability to combine into a mecha better than anything the other two classes can get, and five characters? You're basically a one-man party. :/

One player for the team. Multiple players for a single robot is a can of worms I will not open.

However, I'll reiterate the team members are individiually much weaker than any other pilot. Check the mecha mooks, which is basically the equivalent for real robots. No bonus feats, minor saves, HD and skills, and they'll only get limited spirits. And they can only combine for a limited amount of time every day, and even then the head pilot will still be inferior to other pilots.

Probably a custom vulnerability as well, in that the head pilot is more exposed than normal, meaning you'll probably have to cycle trough the secondary pilots.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on May 01, 2013, 07:54:09 PM
Ah, I think I understand.

However, question: would it be possible to start with a Super Pilot for, say, five levels, then multiclass into the combining class as the 'leader'? The other mecha would be several levels behind, but the leader's would be a bit tougher.

I may or may not have gotten this episode stuck in my head (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8cCyNp9fNo).
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on May 01, 2013, 08:01:19 PM
Doesn't add up. Large is twice the size of Medium, but four times the size of Small, and Huge is four and eight times, respectively.
It could grow more as per the individual size of merging mechas as per that system. I just went with that way to make simple increases rather than semi-complex size maths.

The thing with those rules... is that you end up with a ludicrously overpowered robot in base stats and action economy (can take a move action and several fullround actions? Awesome) and you single out both one person to have control of the mecha and one of your class features.
Not sure how that is different than a bunch of people riding a titanic creature. Action economy isn't so uber considering everyone still gets to do actions but lose the ability to go where they all want to be and that every attacks made against them would count as area attacks affecting them all. One person doesn't control your actions but spirit management doesn't have to be managed by one person. I thought that would prevent having everyone supply a bunch of defensive spirit uses on the main robot or something like that. Its just a draft. Very open to improvement.

Yeah, plus it goes completely bonkers with leadership in that you only need one "main" guy and then an army of 1st level pilots to sky-rocket your stuff. Combining robot just doesn't work if only one of the pilot really matters and the rest are just fodder to stack up on top.
Not at all since you cannot invest more upgrade points in an ability that your level+1. If it takes one point per mecha able to combine, then the 1st level pilots cannot invest enough to join in.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on May 01, 2013, 08:07:42 PM
Who cares about the upgrades?
Quote
The merged mecha would be the size of the biggest mecha +1 per additional mecha.
...
The base stats of the merge robot are that of the highest level robot +2 super pilot level per participating mecha.

There. Get 10 1st level minions. You grow 10 size categories and count as +20 super pilot level. And probably more spirit points than you can spend. 3-5 members team will always be defeated by general Zorgon and his mook horde.

Ah, I think I understand.

However, question: would it be possible to start with a Super Pilot for, say, five levels, then multiclass into the combining class as the 'leader'? The other mecha would be several levels behind, but the leader's would be a bit tougher.
No multiclassing rules at start, this will already be complicated enough by itself.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on May 01, 2013, 08:09:14 PM
Points to get 50% Energy Regen: 10 (also, the Super Robot Upgrade List needs to be fixed, the maths is still working out as if there was a fifth)
40% HP Regen: 10
Agility/Targeter/Plating/Mighty/Battery Maxed: Level+1

Points by level 3: 12. Two robots to supply regeneration, and one with, say, flight. The other takes one of the weapon upgrades. Two more spend four points each on agility/targeter/plating/battery, etc. At level 3, you have maxed HP, AC, energy, energy regen, HP regen, DR, speed, and flight. Now, the big expenditures for half your robots are out of the way, so you can have them choose weapon upgrades, or transformations, etc.

Hell, the bigger problem is that you run out of upgrade choices by about level 8 and have a perpetually maxed robot. With, as pointed out, high base stats as well.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on May 01, 2013, 08:15:14 PM
What?
The +2 base stats would only grant it:

HP: +20
DR: +2
Save bonus: +2/3 super
Energy:+20

The first level minions won't have enough upgrade points to have their mecha merge to begin with.

If everyone gets their upgrades only to avoid overlapping then they will be at a disadvantage when they aren't merged. They would keep their own stats while merged too, so they might still want to get plating and more energy and so on.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on May 01, 2013, 09:09:12 PM
Had almost forgoten this.
Also
Note: Mecha Mooks as PCs

This class is intended for NPC enemies, but it should be fine for a player to use it, as long as they're fine playing with 5 characters that can just perform basic attacks, whitout spirits/maneuvers or anything else but basic attacks, plus a lot of dead levels.
Well depending on how you handle multiclassing... (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Kh7uBEJbnE)

Added custom feat to the Mecha Pilot. Combined Robot is now a multiclass Mecha Mook/Super Robot. Still need to work a custom school but the basics are now there.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on May 03, 2013, 05:04:47 AM
Reduced Stats = 9/5 = 1.8 = 2? Are they getting the full upgrade (10 per level) to HP spread over five robots?

Mildly concerned that the individual mecha will be useless, and the final combined robot inferior to an actual super (since it eats through all of its energy in two or three rounds, is multiclassed by default, cannot take any upgrade which costs more than 1 upgrade point, and you've stated that they only use the best AC, which means that if one has all the plating (does the HP bonus from that get cut to +1?) and one has agility, they won't stack. Hm.

On the other hand, because DR isn't cut into a fifth and stacks, a Mecha Mook 5/Super Robot 15 team can cheerfully have DR 140/-.

I also observe a minor downside with the current 1/5 of storage space per robot in the Mecha Mook class: there are only four robots with enough storage space to actually equip accessories (and they only have access to four weapons and some of the special weapons--if their storage space is 100 to start with). For instance, only two of the starting robots Arsenals will actually fit anything when cut into a fifth (and at that point, you have a choice between a knife and a machine gun for one of them). The Tier III's will fit those weapons and an accessory, but no Tier IV Real Robot's arsenal, divided by five, will fit much of anything (Energy Taker, Steel Knife, Machine Gun, G-Revolver--that's all).

Given that Real Robots already have plenty of inbuilt weaponry, maybe it would be better to make it a flat '1 accessory'/Storage Space 25 thing? Because with the storage sizes available, you get the majority of your options available by level 4.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on May 03, 2013, 08:27:53 PM
Changed the combining rules a bit. They now gain full multiclass HP but it is spread over the 5 members (+2 to 4 and +1 to the last for the total of 9).

The combined robot also gains an extra 5 upgrade points that apply only while transformed, and clarified that you get both the best Natural Armor and Dodge from the combining members, but removed the DR stacking.

Mass Produced Models being unable to pick most acessories is intended. I actually created the Refined Armament so they had something to pick up. Added some new acessories and weapons with low arsenal cost tough.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on May 03, 2013, 08:39:30 PM
Looks good (though cartridges + something like the G-Impact Stake or the Alteisen Reise's Claymore Avalanache seems liable to cause problems)

Do the Mecha Mooks get the full d12 Super Pilot HP?

And finally... you should probably add a clause to the combining rules that negates Promotion, 'cause that really wouldn't work. :lmao

I am now imagining a Mecha Mook 20/Super Pilot 4 team. @_@

EDIT: Can't help but think that ships are currently more bland than even straight Mecha Mook. There's absolutely no choices invested in them aside from size, which is kind of... odd. You'd think there would be amenities of some sort or something (not entirely sure about the fact that everything is apparently the Yamato :p)
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on May 04, 2013, 03:56:38 PM
Looks good (though cartridges + something like the G-Impact Stake or the Alteisen Reise's Claymore Avalanache seems liable to cause problems)

Do the Mecha Mooks get the full d12 Super Pilot HP?

And finally... you should probably add a clause to the combining rules that negates Promotion, 'cause that really wouldn't work. :lmao
Reduced to mecha mook HD and skill points, also put clause against Promotion.

I am now imagining a Mecha Mook 20/Super Pilot 4 team. @_@

EDIT: Can't help but think that ships are currently more bland than even straight Mecha Mook. There's absolutely no choices invested in them aside from size, which is kind of... odd. You'd think there would be amenities of some sort or something (not entirely sure about the fact that everything is apparently the Yamato :p)
That's for what multiclassing is for, go Super Robot if you want fancy battleships.

Pure Ship Captain is more about leading and supporting your troops than piloting a combat machine yourself.

Also, in SRW the battleships are indeed very standardized, always with some variant of "anti air batteries, big ass cannons, then smaller cannons/missiles".
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on May 04, 2013, 04:08:20 PM
I... cannot actually find any rules regarding multiclassing between Ship Captain and Super Pilot. Wait... they're in the Ship Captain section? Rather than the Super Robot list with the Real Robot/Super Robot multiclass rules? :huh

... because SRW has all its ships be the same, all ships in this must be pretty much the same or start digging into a list of Super Pilot upgrades? I... what? :???

EDIT: A multiclass ship/super robot gets less HP than a straight super robot. Despite ships getting more. Also less energy, despite their having the same beforehand. And automatically gains a humanoid form. I must state that this is making less and less sense. Transforming, maybe, but worse health? :|

... also, for taking the full 20 levels in ship captain, you get... a 10th level cohort and one more maneuver. Um... is there any conceivable way that this level  is worth it?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on May 04, 2013, 05:36:02 PM
I... cannot actually find any rules regarding multiclassing between Ship Captain and Super Pilot. Wait... they're in the Ship Captain section? Rather than the Super Robot list with the Real Robot/Super Robot multiclass rules? :huh
I get it, I get it, I have to figure out a better overall organization for this.

... because SRW has all its ships be the same, all ships in this must be pretty much the same or start digging into a list of Super Pilot upgrades? I... what? :???
This is Super ROBOT Wars d20. Mechas are suposed to be the main weapons of war, ships play a support role.  Or you play a ship-robot hybrid.

Also, what else would you sugest? I already have the upgrade list for super robot and fixed lists for real robots.

EDIT: A multiclass ship/super robot gets less HP than a straight super robot. Despite ships getting more. Also less energy, despite their having the same beforehand. And automatically gains a humanoid form. I must state that this is making less and less sense. Transforming, maybe, but worse health? :|
Fluff-all of those moving parts in such a big structure aren't exactly stable.

Crunch-Don't want for a single ship captain dip to produce a straight out better super robot than what the super pilot gets.

... also, for taking the full 20 levels in ship captain, you get... a 10th level cohort and one more maneuver. Um... is there any conceivable way that this level  is worth it?
Said 10th level cohort gives you 3 more spirits and 70 spare spirit points. Even more if you have her invest in spirit-boosting feats.

Which reminds me, gonna have to put a clause in relationship feats to prevent you from loving/friending/rivaling your own officers. :P
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on May 04, 2013, 06:10:57 PM
Internal stuff? You start with all the basics (and I find the Custom Ship fluff amusing given that you've already been carrying all the accessories for three levels for Real Pilots) but there's got to be some stuff that can be added. Somewhere to get non-mecha items. Library. Faster loading/offloading of mecha. Medical bay. Something to enable changing HDxSuper Robot upgrade points for a cost or something.

Super Pilot: bonus upgrade points. Real Pilot: sudden accessory. Ship Captain: "Don't I already have two of you? Go serve food in the cafeteria or something until we're all dead." Not, exactly, a distinctive upgrade. You also ruined the nice pattern you had going (since you get a bonus feat level 18 instead of 4th Officer). Something to improve your leader aura for a brief duration? If you put all your bonus feats into it, you get a 25 foot range aura. In something built to hang around at the back of the battlefield. But to actually use much of your support stuff, you need to be near them... thereby putting your giant target right where people can hit it. Hmm.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on May 04, 2013, 07:24:43 PM
Internal stuff? You start with all the basics (and I find the Custom Ship fluff amusing given that you've already been carrying all the accessories for three levels for Real Pilots) but there's got to be some stuff that can be added. Somewhere to get non-mecha items. Library. Faster loading/offloading of mecha. Medical bay. Something to enable changing HDxSuper Robot upgrade points for a cost or something.
Added a bunch of captain-only feats based on that, thanks for the ideas!

Super Pilot: bonus upgrade points. Real Pilot: sudden accessory. Ship Captain: "Don't I already have two of you? Go serve food in the cafeteria or something until we're all dead." Not, exactly, a distinctive upgrade. You also ruined the nice pattern you had going (since you get a bonus feat level 18 instead of 4th Officer). Something to improve your leader aura for a brief duration? If you put all your bonus feats into it, you get a 25 foot range aura. In something built to hang around at the back of the battlefield. But to actually use much of your support stuff, you need to be near them... thereby putting your giant target right where people can hit it. Hmm.

For the record, Ships Full of Hope has the Great Commander stance that can considerably increase your aura.

4th officer replaced by Legendary Leader capstone nonthless.


4th officer replaced by new Legendary Leader capstone.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on May 05, 2013, 11:22:56 PM
Quote
Stealth:The mecha can hide with out actually having anything to hide behind, even in the middle of the sky or the empty space.

Can this basically be taken to mean that it works as the Hide in Plain Sight feature?

Even I forgot I had asked this question and never got an answer  :tongue
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Concerned Ninja Citizen on May 06, 2013, 04:06:18 AM
How does multiclassing between Arcane/Divine Pilot and Super/Real Pilot work?

That is, if you're an Arcane Pilot who multiclasses to Real Pilot and takes a Real Robot, does your robot have full stats or is it modifed as per the Divine Robot feature?

Same question for the various class combinations.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on May 06, 2013, 05:24:29 PM
Quote
Stealth:The mecha can hide with out actually having anything to hide behind, even in the middle of the sky or the empty space.

Can this basically be taken to mean that it works as the Hide in Plain Sight feature?

Even I forgot I had asked this question and never got an answer  :tongue
No. HiPS usually demands some special condition/terrain to work. It's far from a standardized ability.

How does multiclassing between Arcane/Divine Pilot and Super/Real Pilot work?

That is, if you're an Arcane Pilot who multiclasses to Real Pilot and takes a Real Robot, does your robot have full stats or is it modifed as per the Divine Robot feature?

Same question for the various class combinations.

Multiclassing between a "caster" pilot and a "noncaster" pilot will still result in modified stats as per the caster pilot entry. Still apply usual ship/super/real multiclass rules before modified stats.

Multiclassing between arcane pilot and divine pilot means you get to channel both kinds of magic. Still reduced stats of course.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on May 06, 2013, 11:32:11 PM
Oh, so the mecha stealth ability is better? :D
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on May 07, 2013, 02:29:57 AM
Out of curiosity, what made you decide to use maneuvers for stuff like rocket punches, bigger rocket punches, and ultimate attacks?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on May 07, 2013, 04:19:06 PM
Oh, so the mecha stealth ability is better? :D
Yes. I didn't feel like complicating things on that matter.

Out of curiosity, what made you decide to use maneuvers for stuff like rocket punches, bigger rocket punches, and ultimate attacks?
If I remember correctly, it came from a discussion with Prime32 about how to do the Super Robot martial school.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on May 08, 2013, 06:55:25 PM
Could there be an option for life-energy dependant mechas?
kind of like Zearth in Bokurano, but maybe not as vicious.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on May 09, 2013, 04:09:48 AM
Oh, so the mecha stealth ability is better? :D
Yes. I didn't feel like complicating things on that matter.

Ah, I don't suppose being Stealthed counts as being Invisible for Hide bonuses, does it?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on May 09, 2013, 12:10:48 PM
Nope. It only allows you to Hide anywhere. If you successfully hide, you're not invisible, only unseen.
But I understand your confusion. In shows the camouflage sort of feel like an invisibility. Perhaps invisibility-seeing effects could negate the stealth.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on May 09, 2013, 01:45:26 PM
Nope. It only allows you to Hide anywhere. If you successfully hide, you're not invisible, only unseen.
But I understand your confusion. In shows the camouflage sort of feel like an invisibility. Perhaps invisibility-seeing effects could negate the stealth.

Size penalties on super huge mechs make this Stealth option a tough one to imagine using then.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on May 09, 2013, 03:15:59 PM
Could there be an option for life-energy dependant mechas?
kind of like Zearth in Bokurano, but maybe not as vicious.
Maybe. But not really a priority, since that kinda stuff is a pain to balance out.

Nope. It only allows you to Hide anywhere. If you successfully hide, you're not invisible, only unseen.
But I understand your confusion. In shows the camouflage sort of feel like an invisibility. Perhaps invisibility-seeing effects could negate the stealth.
Perhaps noncasters should get nice things that aren't automatically defeated by a bunch of staple spells.

Size penalties on super huge mechs make this Stealth option a tough one to imagine using then.
Nacht system now allows you to ignore size penalties to hide checks.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on May 09, 2013, 03:38:59 PM
Hm, I wonder if it would be possible to create a variant of the Super Pilot/Robot where they get more upgrade points (and/or a split between utility and weapons) but don't have maneuvers, basically folding the weaponry and energy costs into it? Not suggesting you do it, just wondering if it's possible.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on May 09, 2013, 05:52:47 PM
Nacht system now allows you to ignore size penalties to hide checks.

Yeah that really does make it easier to utilize  :)
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on May 09, 2013, 05:53:20 PM
Clearly, large enough mecha just pretend to be hills.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Concerned Ninja Citizen on May 11, 2013, 03:00:22 AM
Do multiple instances of the Reactor property stack? From both arsenal and upgrades, for example?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on May 12, 2013, 12:36:33 PM
Huh, oddity: Veteran Mechanic doesn't help the ship itself at all. You'd think having someone on board that knew what they were doing would at least cut down the time taken to get it airworthy after crashing.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on May 12, 2013, 03:29:51 PM
Do multiple instances of the Reactor property stack? From both arsenal and upgrades, for example?
No. That's why I made it a keyword. It still stacks with the base mecha regeneration because it has no actual keyword.

Huh, oddity: Veteran Mechanic doesn't help the ship itself at all. You'd think having someone on board that knew what they were doing would at least cut down the time taken to get it airworthy after crashing.
Good point, will add something about that.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on May 14, 2013, 06:50:24 PM
Suggestion: feat that lets you keep fighting after your mecha is destroyed, but all damage goes directly to your HP. Also have to burn Spirit in place of Energy.

... the idea probably needs work. XD
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on May 14, 2013, 08:42:40 PM
I like the idea but then what would be the point of the One with the Machine ability of the android?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on May 14, 2013, 08:44:10 PM
I like the idea but then what would be the point of the One with the Machine ability of the android?

Every other race but androids would still benefit then?

Does sound like a pretty interesting feat.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on May 14, 2013, 08:56:05 PM
I know, I just mean that it is about the same but better.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on May 15, 2013, 05:05:11 AM
So something needs to be done to make the downside equivalent to two fullround actions. Simple enough.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on May 16, 2013, 03:33:24 PM
Simple, but still too good for a feat. Maybe a pilot prestige class mid/final ability.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on May 16, 2013, 03:35:13 PM
Maybe a pilot PrC based around Spirit?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on May 19, 2013, 03:21:46 PM
An idea for the future.

Meanwhile added Cruising Speed ability to the Battleship.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on May 19, 2013, 03:37:02 PM
Since the use of spirits is considered to be a mecha action, I was wondering; the Pilot feats do not specify that they only work when you are in a mecha.

Do they?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on May 19, 2013, 03:39:49 PM
I had already said in the OOC thread that pilot feats still work when you're outside the mecha.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on May 23, 2013, 02:52:38 AM
The super robot upgrade Transform: what kind of action does it take to transform?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on May 23, 2013, 02:59:10 AM
Its the same as the Real Robot Transform special property, a swift action.
Its under the Mecha Special Properties spoiler on the Real Robot List thread where all of the special property stuff is described in more detail.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on May 23, 2013, 03:43:46 AM
Ah, I see.

Does it mention somewhere if a mecha can fight with certain weapons two-handed for 1.5 str damage?
Like sword-like arsenal weapons.
Or when they have only one melee weapon, natural weapon-like or not, such as the Meggilot's Bug Horn.

If they can fight two-handed, how'd it interact with the Main Weapon upgrade? It'd only add .5 to the multiplier?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on May 23, 2013, 04:41:02 PM
Ah, I see.

Does it mention somewhere if a mecha can fight with certain weapons two-handed for 1.5 str damage?
Like sword-like arsenal weapons.
Or when they have only one melee weapon, natural weapon-like or not, such as the Meggilot's Bug Horn.
People keep asking that, so I'll just add a note on super robot basics.

If they can fight two-handed, how'd it interact with the Main Weapon upgrade? It'd only add .5 to the multiplier?
Yes.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on May 24, 2013, 11:16:48 PM
Quote
Mecha Melee weapons add 1,5 the Str mod of the user if they don't use any other weapon for that round
There is a big difference between fighting two-handed and not using other weapons (after all, my favorite kind of two-weapon combat involved two-handed fighting), but I suppose that you'd prefer to handle it this way as far as mecha combat is involved.
I imagine that specifying melee weapons means that we cannot use brutal ranged weapons "two-handed".

While on the subject, how are the attack rolls with multiple weapons handled? Like normal weapons or natural weapons? Or a mix of the two?
Say, a fullattack action by an Alteisen with BAB 11 that doesn't have arsenal weapons would be:
A) Revolver Stake x3 (no penalty, -5, -10) || Autocannon x3 (no penalty, -5, -10) || Heat Horn x3 (no penalty, -5, -10) || Claymores x1
B) Revolver Stake, Autocannon (-5) and Heat Horn (-5) || Claymores x1
C) Revolver Stake x3 (no penalty, -5, -10), Autocannon (-5) and Heat Horn (-5) [Revolver Stake can be replaced by the other two] || Claymores x1
D) [pilot has 2-W fighting feats) Revolver Stake x3 (no penalty, -5, -10 and two-weapon fighting penalties) and Autocannon x2 or Heat Horn x2 (no penalty, -5, and two-weapon fighting penalties) || Claymores x1
E) As D, but the Heat Horn or Autocannon can attack once at -5 as a natural weapon on top of the rest.
F) As B, but none of the weapons get penalties on their attack.

Also, since mecha flight movement costs 1 energy per 5 mu moved, I was wondering. Does double flight speed when going downward count for energy movement costs? Reasoning is that since your speed is doubled when flying downward because gravity is doing half the job, should you pay half energy costs when flying downward?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on May 25, 2013, 08:36:22 PM
Using multiple mecha weapons are treated precisely as using multiple manufactured weapons.

Also, since mecha flight movement costs 1 energy per 5 mu moved, I was wondering. Does double flight speed when going downward count for energy movement costs? Reasoning is that since your speed is doubled when flying downward because gravity is doing half the job, should you pay half energy costs when flying downward?

Giant robots tell gravity to fuck off. They move at regular speed at regular energy costs regardless of the direction they're going.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on May 25, 2013, 09:04:36 PM
No-one wants their giant robot in an uncontrolled descent, after all. :D
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on May 25, 2013, 09:10:56 PM
Quote
Giant robots tell gravity to fuck off. They move at regular speed at regular energy costs regardless of the direction they're going.
So as per Perfect flight speed no matter the maneuverability, but without double speed downwards. Or as some kind of Air Walk. Gotcha.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on June 14, 2013, 07:22:22 PM
We really need a 'fight mecha on foot' class. :lmao
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on June 14, 2013, 07:28:00 PM
We really need a 'fight mecha on foot' class. :lmao

Moon Vanguard!  :D
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on June 14, 2013, 07:41:51 PM
We really need a 'fight mecha on foot' class. :lmao

Moon Vanguard!  :D

That doesn't count. It's not in the same subforum, even! :<

Also because you still have a mecha.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on June 14, 2013, 07:48:11 PM
It sorta COULD count  :whistle

Otherwise a class that doesn't get a mecha that can fight mechas......is probably gonna be like a Shounen Superhero kind of thing.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on June 14, 2013, 07:50:13 PM
It sorta COULD count  :whistle

Otherwise a class that doesn't get a mecha that can fight mechas......is probably gonna be like a Shounen Superhero kind of thing.

It happens. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAizwLfZbUA)
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on June 14, 2013, 07:58:06 PM
Exactly my point.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on June 14, 2013, 07:59:33 PM
Exactly my point.

I'm not sure declaring Master Asia a superhero is the right thing to do. And that is from a Gundam show. :p
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on June 14, 2013, 08:05:09 PM
It sorta COULD count  :whistle

Otherwise a class that doesn't get a mecha that can fight mechas......is probably gonna be like a Shounen Superhero kind of thing.

It happens. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAizwLfZbUA)
Master Asia just happens to be ridiculously high level, so yes he can own low level mechas barehanded. :p

Anyway, how about a pilot feat that allows you to:
-Use your pilot maneuvers and stances on foot (each only once per ecounter).
-Inflict status effects on mechas while on foot.
-Gives you some jetpack/jetbike/bionic legs that turn your movement into mecha type for a short burst of time.

That would take care of the "pilot left on foot can still keep facing enemies head on".

Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on June 14, 2013, 08:13:34 PM
That seems like a pretty powerful feat.

Oh, actually, what if you incorporated using Spirit with the pilot feat idea to use mecha maneuvers and stances outside of your mecha? Because, like, its Spirit. Like, um....gosh I don't quite know how to explain what I mean.  :-\
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on June 14, 2013, 10:26:43 PM
You mean using Spirit instead of Energy to use maneuvers on foot, since spirit is to the pilot kind of what energy is to a mecha? Sorta?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on June 14, 2013, 10:29:42 PM
You mean using Spirit instead of Energy to use maneuvers on foot, since spirit is to the pilot kind of what energy is to a mecha? Sorta?

I think that's similar to something I was pondering for a spirit focused class--when they run out of energy or HP, spirit can be substituted instead. :lmao
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on June 14, 2013, 10:35:11 PM
You mean using Spirit instead of Energy to use maneuvers on foot, since spirit is to the pilot kind of what energy is to a mecha? Sorta?

Sorta, yeah.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on June 16, 2013, 10:29:18 AM
You mean using Spirit instead of Energy to use maneuvers on foot, since spirit is to the pilot kind of what energy is to a mecha? Sorta?

I think that's similar to something I was pondering for a spirit focused class--when they run out of energy or HP, spirit can be substituted instead. :lmao

The thing is, spirits can still be used by pilots on foot.

The 1/ecounter mecha maneuver was suposed to be a desesperation move.

For example here's Kouji Kabuto using Rocket Punch when unable to acess the Mazinger. (http://www.mangareader.net/930-37868-27/shin-mazinger-zero/chapter-2.html) Definetely something you can't pull twice in the same ecounter, regardless of how strong your spirit is. :p

Anyway, any objections against the feat?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on June 16, 2013, 10:32:49 AM
No objections on my part, though I should point out that for the thing I was thinking of there, they'd still be in the mecha.

If you can't power your robot through hot bloodedness, you're doing something wrong and I think both the TTGL and Getter Robo universes are going to be disappointed in you. :p
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on June 16, 2013, 10:54:28 AM
Increased the energy cost from The Gravity Wall and Gravity Wall prototype to 15 and 10 respectively.

Also following Raine Daze's sugestion on the Phantasy Star campaign, you can quickly get a weaker robot/ship if your main one gets destroyed to help you in your quest.

Feat should come up later today, need food now.

No objections on my part, though I should point out that for the thing I was thinking of there, they'd still be in the mecha.

If you can't power your robot through hot bloodedness, you're doing something wrong and I think both the TTGL and Getter Robo universes are going to be disappointed in you. :p
Well, that's for what spirits are for. You can use them to make your mechas keep going, deal more damage, act faster, etc.

As for Getter, I still have to figure out some mechanics for 3-member combineable robots. :P
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on June 16, 2013, 01:27:12 PM
Not sure about the escape pod ruling being one size bigger than the pilot.
I seem to recall a ruling that the pilot cannot be larger than the mecha, so a mecha's minimum size is equal to the pilot's (in cases of very large pilots and/or very small mechas through miniaturization abilities).
If the escape pod is bigger than the mecha, something fishy is going on.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on June 16, 2013, 01:28:45 PM
Maybe if you're as big as your mecha, there's no escape pod and you're just ejected 1d12x5 MU?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Concerned Ninja Citizen on June 16, 2013, 03:22:58 PM
I've been idly contemplating the idea of a Super Pilot who picked the max number of miniaturization upgrades, such that they have a mecha diminutive (which translates to large) robot at lv12.

 Such a character could technically bring their mecha anywhere that an average party would be expected to go, and thus adventure in their mecha at all times.

Would having one character in a party able to use mecha scale when it suited them cause serious balance problems?

(click to show/hide)
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on June 16, 2013, 03:39:23 PM
Well, that would be getting pretty close to a Moon Vanguard's nanoarmor that is always working on Mu scale.  :tongue
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on June 16, 2013, 03:42:24 PM
You'd probably have to slow down in confined spaces unless you like smashing into walls. :rolleyes
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on June 16, 2013, 03:57:33 PM
Naaah. These are all equipped with the same technology installed in those vacuum-cleaner-bots. They scan the area in front of them and make turns automatically.
They can also ignore the ongoing forces of their own acceleration whenever they make sharp turns.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on June 16, 2013, 04:22:09 PM
Maybe if you're as big as your mecha, there's no escape pod and you're just ejected 1d12x5 MU?
Done.

I've been idly contemplating the idea of a Super Pilot who picked the max number of miniaturization upgrades, such that they have a mecha diminutive (which translates to large) robot at lv12.

 Such a character could technically bring their mecha anywhere that an average party would be expected to go, and thus adventure in their mecha at all times.

Would having one character in a party able to use mecha scale when it suited them cause serious balance problems?
Average parties don't have large party members. Whatever limitations can prevent the players from just crashing Not-Mazinger into wherever they want to go can be applied to diminutive mechas as well.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Concerned Ninja Citizen on June 16, 2013, 05:30:27 PM
Average lv12 parties? There's lots of ways to be permanently large at that level, even sticking to published material.

Average homebrew enabled parties will have large members sooner.

The rest of your post made no sense to me. I think I missed a reference or an earlier conversation or something. What are the limitations you allude to?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on June 16, 2013, 05:43:01 PM
What, you mean you don't give the druid and persistent cleric good reasons to drop their size buffs now and then? :p

Average size-changing homebrew also usually includes options to turn to more manageable sizes.

Limitations can include narrow portals/tunnels where only a small creature fits naturally. Medium creatures can squeeze in. Large ones not. Said portals/tunnels are key parts of an important structure you don't want wrecked no matter what, meaning you can't just smash an hole with brute force to make room for bigger guys.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on June 16, 2013, 05:46:33 PM
Level 16, fine-MU mecha.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Concerned Ninja Citizen on June 16, 2013, 07:58:15 PM
What, you mean you don't give the druid and persistent cleric good reasons to drop their size buffs now and then? :p

Average size-changing homebrew also usually includes options to turn to more manageable sizes.

Limitations can include narrow portals/tunnels where only a small creature fits naturally. Medium creatures can squeeze in. Large ones not. Said portals/tunnels are key parts of an important structure you don't want wrecked no matter what, meaning you can't just smash an hole with brute force to make room for bigger guys.

So if someone chose to play a medium sized mounted charger and focused on it to the point that they sucked without their mount, you would force them to abandon it on a regular basis?

The hypothetical diminutive mecha pilot isn't in any worse a situation than the mount based character above. They just get out of their mecha and fight (or find a role that doesn't require that.)
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on June 17, 2013, 10:50:19 AM
Last time I checked, mounted chargers indeed prefer to be small-sized in order to ride a medium-sized mount so they don't risk facing themselves with enemies in 5-feet passages.

Not to mention classes like the paladin get to call their mounts only when needed pokemon-style.

As for level 16 fine mecha, well, I guess I'll just have to remove that option and limit miniaturization to diminutive mechas.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on June 17, 2013, 01:32:26 PM
Last time I checked, mounted chargers indeed prefer to be small-sized in order to ride a medium-sized mount so they don't risk facing themselves with enemies in 5-feet passages.

Not to mention classes like the paladin get to call their mounts only when needed pokemon-style.

As for level 16 fine mecha, well, I guess I'll just have to remove that option and limit miniaturization to diminutive mechas.

Aww, but that's such a high level there's surely worse things you could be doing by that point? Like laser-cannoning every fixed obstacle and sifting through the rubble? :lmao
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on June 18, 2013, 06:40:11 PM
New batch of feats added, also pimped up Prevail, Guardian, Predict and Attacker a bit. Any comments here please.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on June 18, 2013, 06:55:48 PM
Ace Legend = constant +10 to Dodge AC? :huh

Bit amused that you specified Love here, didn't think all Real Pilots were Casanova wannabes.

Wargear is almost the Real Pilot capstone, and it's a lot more usable. Plus that entire supply thing raises so many questions about how it's being executed if, say, you're on a stealth mission or something, or supposed to be acting independently. Ditto for sudden Mecha Mook.

Same thing--constant Energy-free Gravity Wall, instead of constant +10 AC.

Come to Me presumably has the potential for the same issues as the Real Pilot spontaneous arrival stuff.

Pure Crafting? Really? A completely system, just for a single feat? The basic options don't even seem that good, for mecha. :eh

Your choice of skills here isn't very good (Strength and Con are not known for their wonderful array of skills) in comparison to free Knowledge, observation, and stealth ranks. :p

The communications stuff seems more like a tax on feats and maneuvers than a handy option, especially not the communications (because it cripples energy recovery)

The Warp stuff reminds me of Gunbuster, and it's nice to see really long range travel somewhere, but... again, seems kind of like a tax. :/

Prevail is definitely a lot more worth it... if you can keep your HP in that area. Same for Attacker and Guardian, if the individual enemies are strong enough. Still kind of situational, but better than previously.

EDIT: Possibly the most grating thing about the Ship Captain feat: one of its abilities is more flavourful than practical, two are practically obligatory, and it requires a feat that focuses on personal combat when it's mostly a support package.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on June 18, 2013, 07:15:04 PM
Ace Legend and An Ally of Justice grant the feat, but you still need to activate it in the case of Evade/Defend.

The detail with wargear supply is that it's one level lower of what you can usually get (plus you need either swift+move or double move to get it). How they get there ? Who knows. Maybe just by crashing in at high speed. Maybe they were there all along waiting for you, prepared in advance.

Come to Me is an iconic super robot ability.

I needed 4 options per feat but couldn't remember anything else, so yes pure crafting ho!  :p

Cha still beats everything else in the skills department.

Communication/Warp isn't that much of a tax if you take in account you can only benefit from one at a time. So if you're in combat you can always switch to the bonus feats, whereas the Real/Super need to drop their bonus feats to benefit from the other stuff.

EDIT: And what if I drop the Born To Fight prerequisite from Heaven-Sailing Dragon?

Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on June 18, 2013, 07:22:54 PM
If they're so good at infiltration into Places Lesser Men Dare Not Go, why are we the heroes, again? Nevertheless, a bunch of useful Arsenal equipment is lower level, since you just don't have space (and it alternates shields/armour, so if you only have one in your basic load-out, you can casually grab the other).

Come to Me is definitely iconic, I just find it a bit odd, since there's the 'HOW THE HELL DID THIS GET HERE' thing. Though maybe all Super Robots are now Nono. That would work.

I mean that their utility--long distance communication and transport--make spending the two feats pretty obligatory, especially if the campaign is tending towards space opera.

I honestly don't think Pure Crafting is that useful. You only get the plain benefits; the weaponry doesn't come with Power, Rending or an attack bonus; several materials for armour and shields are pretty useless in these situations; and all the good defensive benefits require two matching items. If you have any good SU abilities or UMD tools, they're also getting in the way. So, uh... not the best addition. Hmm...

EDIT: Without the prerequisite, it's a lot more attractive. Spend a feat at level 6 (if you've been focusing on a very support-oriented ship rather than BEAMCANNON, HO), get the communication and transport.

Not entirely sure of the utility of Jamming, but eh. :p
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on June 18, 2013, 07:41:00 PM
They're not that good. You are that good, and it's only thanks to your tactical genius that they got so far ahead. And then they die and you're still alive to tell the story. :p

Pretty much every named Kurogane No Linebarrel character with a personal robot can use Come to Me,  and there's quite a bit of named characters with personal robots in that series.  :P
(click to show/hide)

Over the Top now allows you to grant Pure Metal properties to one of your mecha's weapons.

Removed Born to Fight from Heaven-Sailing Dragon prerequisites.

Changed jamming to just reduce energy recovery if you're using it simultaneously with commonications. It's useful to prevent enemies from alerting the rest of the planet and stuff.

Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on June 18, 2013, 07:46:33 PM
Hm...

Question

Does Pure Adamantine's 'ignore half DR' stack with... Rending, I think it is? (An exception to the not-granting-rending thing, but since that's all it would do... @_@)

Only other useful metals look like Pure Iron and Pure Mythril, Gold is a diplomatic tool, Silver is anti-undead, and Cold Iron is more Caster focused.  :lmao

Teleporting Super Robot! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFppdq6vEPg) XD
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on June 19, 2013, 04:34:18 AM
Come to Me can be abused terribly I feel like because of this
"...It arrives instantly and at full energy..."

Whats to stop some one from hopping out of their still operational but low on energy (or out of energy) mecha in the middle of a battle, using some extra move actions thing, and immediately using Come to Me to refill the energy and hop back in one round? Something like giving this option a cooldown could maybe help with that. Or making it usable only once per encounter? Better yet, it only works when the mecha has more than a certain level of energy? Say 1/2 or 2/3?

I dunno. *shrugs*

Edit: What was edited into the Super Robots List? I'm not seeing mention of anything or I'm missing something.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on June 21, 2013, 06:53:05 PM
It now requires it to be at full energy, so that line becomes redundant.
Should there be a pilot feat for Into the Dangerzone too?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on June 21, 2013, 08:31:08 PM
Yeah I edited that one, but forgot to point it out here. Busy busy.

And there should be a pilot feat for Into the Danger Zone. When I get another burst of inspiration. :p
(ideas welcome tough)
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on June 22, 2013, 10:45:59 AM
Feat suggestion: 'Advanced Combat Model' or somesuch. Let's an Android have one Accessory in addition to their weapon. Again, non-functional in the mecha.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on June 22, 2013, 11:11:07 AM
Good idea, done.

Also changed the Strike spirit cost to 30.

Speaking of which, can anyone sugest me how an ideal layout would be for this when I have the time to organize? One new thread for all mecha general rules, including muticlassing notes?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on June 22, 2013, 11:18:03 AM
Right, as I see it:


Aside from rearranging, there's also making sure that all the rules for a single property etc. are in one place rather than needing multiple disparate threads open to check the ruling for something (this especially crops up with the Super Robot list, where it references the Real Robot thread)

I can't say there's anything else I can think of that's necessary, but I'd condense all four schools into one thread, or get  a subforum and put them in there. :lmao
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on June 22, 2013, 11:45:57 AM
I second the mech merge. Set up all the rules to the mechs in a single thread. All the upgrade rules, cost, and who can take then in a single post rather than two threads, etc.

When you merged your Funnel Feats into the main Feat thread you now have a half empty Funnel thread that contains enough. The thread should probably be deleted, or at least contain copypasta.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on July 08, 2013, 12:40:14 PM
Will take care of the great re-organization once I've stablized my D&D campaigns.

Meanwhile, mechas now ignore hardness and DR against non-mecha targets smaller than themselves.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on July 20, 2013, 11:40:00 AM
I'm having trouble working out how Who The Hell Do You Think I Am is supposed to work. What does it... you know, do?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on July 20, 2013, 11:47:05 AM
Buffs two skills of your choice (or two of Str, Con or Cha checks) until you end it or activate another option of I am Invincible!

The insight bonus is equal to the highest level Burning Justice maneuver you can use.

On another note, hopefully I'll  be able to finally make the big clean-up around here this weekend.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on July 20, 2013, 11:48:34 AM
Any of those skills, or just those you don't have ranks in?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on July 20, 2013, 02:10:27 PM
Those you dont have ranks in, correct.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on July 20, 2013, 02:47:04 PM
The new Ship Captain feat, Veteran Mechanics says:
Quote
The ship itself may be repaired in just two weeks if reduced to 0 HP, or 20% of its max HP per hour of interrupted work if still at positive HP.

Should be "uninterrupted", shouldn't it?

Also, Engineering Bay sounds like a really cool feat after reading the part about a hybrid Real/Super ship being able to reconstruct itself.
It's kinda like a really, really slow transformation scene  :D
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on July 20, 2013, 02:49:29 PM
The new Ship Captain feat, Veteran Mechanics says:
Quote
The ship itself may be repaired in just two weeks if reduced to 0 HP, or 20% of its max HP per hour of interrupted work if still at positive HP.

Should be "uninterrupted", shouldn't it?

Also, Engineering Bay sounds like a really cool feat after reading the part about a hybrid Real/Super ship being able to reconstruct itself.
It's kinda like a really, really slow transformation scene  :D

No, no, the transformation scene is when the ship goes from a ship to an absolutely huge robot.

They're not actually new feats, Os has just started rearranging things. :p
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on July 20, 2013, 02:55:59 PM
They're new to me :p
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on July 20, 2013, 03:28:36 PM
Well looks like the new organization is producing results already! :P

That should be it for now. Merged pilots threads with their respective machines, consolidated a bunch of rules bits on the sticky post, updated index, locked threads no longer in use, overhauled funnels to hopefully make them more simple and efficient.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on July 20, 2013, 04:09:02 PM
Thank you.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on July 20, 2013, 09:57:26 PM
Question about the discipline pilot feats:
They say they require you to be in the right stance and that "You cannot start one while another is still active tough."
Now.
Is being in the stance necessary only for the activation or must the stance be kept to maintain any continuous effects?

Shooting Star, Cut Trough the Night: Making sure I got this right.

Ace Legend: I imagine that if a relationship feat is taken for this option, its requirements must be fulfilled as normal? Meaning, you can only use it on someone you actually love. That said I'm unsure why Love better fits real pilots and Rivalry better fits super pilots. Might make more sense to grant any relationship fit instead of a specific one.

Supply drop: Locks you out of using the other options from the moment you use it, including the 1d3 delay and until the drop is used/expires.
The feat also makes a distinction between using a drop (to prevent it from expiring after 5 rounds) and picking them up.
It does not mention the action needed to equip/use/activate them after picking them up. Wargear seems to add an additional 5 seconds of use on top of how long it took to use it. The drone doesn't say how long it lasts after being activated if left unattacked. It is unsure if the drone can be activate more than once to have it move again on successive rounds.

Natural Leader: It locks you out of using the other options for as long as the mook is around. The oddity of seeing every loyal henchmen you ever call get destroyed randomly aside, what is the level of that mecha mook, and is there a way to send him off early to be able to use your other options without waiting for him to explode?

I am Invincible!

Come to Me: You're saying it is at full energy twice. The second one can be taken out seeing how you already put it as a requirement for the option's use.

Over the Top: It seems you must have the pure metal thing to be used with this option. You don't temporarily spawn one out of nowhere like the real pilot discipline feat like, say, bigass pure metal mecha sunglasses. From the moment you start integrating the thing, you get locked out of using the other options, and that until after the 1d3 rounds to remove it are done.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on July 20, 2013, 10:01:15 PM
If Over the Top needs the actual item... uh, what. That effectively makes it a three feat requirement to use the whole feat.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on July 21, 2013, 02:16:32 AM
Can't you just buy the thing or have someone else craft it for you?
It would be logical to need the piece to be used as there is no guideline for what kind of pure metal thingy could be spawned otherwise.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on July 21, 2013, 06:21:30 AM
Question about the discipline pilot feats:
They say they require you to be in the right stance and that "You cannot start one while another is still active tough."
Now.
Is being in the stance necessary only for the activation or must the stance be kept to maintain any continuous effects?
You must remain in a stance of the respective school, altough you can change between diferent stances from the same discipline.

Shooting Star, Cut Trough the Night: Making sure I got this right.

Ace Legend: I imagine that if a relationship feat is taken for this option, its requirements must be fulfilled as normal? Meaning, you can only use it on someone you actually love. That said I'm unsure why Love better fits real pilots and Rivalry better fits super pilots. Might make more sense to grant any relationship fit instead of a specific one.
What can I say, Real Pilots seem to be the ones that actually try to advance relationships with their loved ones, while super pilots are too busy being angst/hotblooded and showing off to actually try to stablish a deeper connection with another being of the same size (totally unbiased opinion as my current avatar proves :p)

Supply drop: Locks you out of using the other options from the moment you use it, including the 1d3 delay and until the drop is used/expires.
The feat also makes a distinction between using a drop (to prevent it from expiring after 5 rounds) and picking them up.
It does not mention the action needed to equip/use/activate them after picking them up. Wargear seems to add an additional 5 seconds of use on top of how long it took to use it. The drone doesn't say how long it lasts after being activated if left unattacked. It is unsure if the drone can be activate more than once to have it move again on successive rounds.
[/quote]
Hmm, good points, removed the 1d3 rounds delay and tweaked a bit the supply drop effects.


Natural Leader: It locks you out of using the other options for as long as the mook is around. The oddity of seeing every loyal henchmen you ever call get destroyed randomly aside, what is the level of that mecha mook, and is there a way to send him off early to be able to use your other options without waiting for him to explode?
More good points, tweaked that one a bit as well.

I am Invincible!

Come to Me: You're saying it is at full energy twice. The second one can be taken out seeing how you already put it as a requirement for the option's use.
Done.

Over the Top: It seems you must have the pure metal thing to be used with this option. You don't temporarily spawn one out of nowhere like the real pilot discipline feat like, say, bigass pure metal mecha sunglasses. From the moment you start integrating the thing, you get locked out of using the other options, and that until after the 1d3 rounds to remove it are done.
Allowed option to spawn lesser pute metal items out of nowhere. Also clarified the removal is instant.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on July 21, 2013, 11:54:01 AM
Alright cool.
Here's some thoughts on usage and such.

I like how you made leaving some of the continuous effects a swift/move - it made switching between two stances less of an effective way to efficiently cancel them to use other options.

Supply Drop (Energy Tank) - Kinda feels like Wargear. Wargear can give you an energy regen+ arsenal gizmos. This one though stacks with them, though, so once you get this feat, considering 5 rounds is half a minute - and this thing can be used once per minute - it becomes rather hard to ever fall out of energy.

Natural Leader - Now that the timer is removed and the dude stays until the effect is discontinued, it feels better to have it on an hourly cooldown. It clearly isn't the intent but since the minion is now kinda-permanent, it means that every hour you can call an additional single mecha mook, and slowly build a little army. Unless the hour cooldown begins from the moment the mecha mook is dismissed/destroyed.
Problem I can imagine with this option granting the capability to spawn him anywhere is how neat it can be used in puzzle situations and such. Say you see a lever at the other side of a gauntlet of obstacles of all kinds that would stop the timer of the self destruction of the base you're in or whatever, and you make the mook appear next to it. You easily defeat the gauntlet/puzzle/other. It is also probably pretty useful if you get imprisoned: Make the dude appear every hour, bypassing every security measures of the great prison and try to break out.

Over the Top - Just a thought, can you remove the pure metal item even if you aren't in the mecha? You might feel funny next time you try to call your mecha and you remember you forgot to remove those pure metal sunglasses before leaving it in that one dump (though there is always that stance swapping trick to take care of it).

Good work all-round.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on July 21, 2013, 04:17:44 PM
Thanks!

Both Energy Tank and personal mook are considered effects from that feat, so you can't use them again or one of the other effects while they last. You can keep them around all the time yes, but that then cuts down your options.

Being useful in puzzle situations is fully intended for those feats, so pilots aren't just big hulking brutes. Friends showing up of nowhere to rescue you from the enemy fortress is a classic after all. Just be prepared for the alarm to be raised when they press said lever and they get shot to bits, leaving you to find a way out for the next hour. :p

Which reminds me I had some drafts for more exotic types of grenades. And still have the expanded real robot list to finish.

Integrating/removing items with Over the Top doesn't seem to actually demand you being inside your mecha. I'll leave it like that for now since your robot throwing you your personal sword does sound like the kind of stuff you should be able to do. :P
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on July 23, 2013, 09:33:07 PM
Is there a reason the Gravity Wall Prototype is basically more effective? :huh

10 energy for (InitialDamage-DR)/2 as the outcome (prototype)
15 energy for InitialDamage/2-DR as the outcome.

The second can potentially reduce it to 0--but the former actually works out as InitialDamage/2-2*DR.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on July 24, 2013, 04:57:04 AM
Let's say you take 50 damage and have 20 DR.

Prototype: apply DR (30 damage) and divide by 2 (take 15 damage).

Regular: divide by 2 (25 damage) and apply DR (take just 5 damage).
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on July 24, 2013, 08:09:07 AM
For reasons I am not quite awake enough to decipher, the regular always has a 10 damage advantage. Never mind, then.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on August 09, 2013, 07:14:48 PM
Added a bunch of special weapons, a new Relationship feat (Devotion), Dandy Pilot feat for Into the Danger Zone and buffed up Friendship a bit by making the bonus scaling.

On a completely unrelated note, I had finally managed to watch Diebuster 1 and 2 at the end of the last month.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on August 09, 2013, 07:18:42 PM
Added a bunch of special weapons, a new Relationship feat (Devotion), Dandy Pilot feat for Into the Danger Zone and buffed up Friendship a bit by making the bonus scaling.

On a completely unrelated note, I had finally managed to watch Diebuster 1 and 2 at the end of the last month.

So... you mean you've seen Gunbuster and Diebuster and now have some idea what I'm talking about if I start rambling about space monsters? :p

EDIT: Oh, hey, Nono feat. Though I say Love is more fitting, but it is only a 6-episode OVA, so... XD
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on August 09, 2013, 07:23:03 PM
But of course.

It also gave me a burst of inspiration to finally start working on einst/space monster horde class, altough that one will take longer as I have to figure out rules for bioships and extra-giant flesh monsters and whatnot. :P
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on August 09, 2013, 07:28:13 PM
I would advise you to not make them to scale with Gunbuster's monsters. Those things at the end? Well...

I found this thread a while back. (http://monsterarchives.proboards.com/thread/2058) They end up just a little unreasonably big. Oh, and a page on the ships. Because I always forget their names. (http://www.toponeraegunbuster.com/Gunbuster-Starships.html) Also because one of them is responsible for the... THING in Diebuster. And the other became Jupiter. :lmao
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on August 09, 2013, 09:09:05 PM
Dam, that Dandy feat for ItDZ is rather nasty. And I mean the Field Improv ability of it. Specifically I mean the extra ability added to a Rending weapon. I would love that. The rest of the feat's options are pretty underpowered, imo, compared to that one.  :tongue
Just because that is the only option I would outright want to use all the time and it can be used all the time, so long as you're in an IDZ stance.

Edit: Thinking about it, the other three options for the Dandy feat do actually look like situational abilities appropriate a tactical feat, but the Field Improv ability of the feat really isn't a situational ability it seems like. That ability alone seems more fitting of its own feat.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on August 14, 2013, 05:53:38 AM
After some tought, changed the rending one to halving energy recovery, much like the power one to HP.

Yes, the abilities are somewhat situational, but you get a big variety of them, so you should always have something useful (and if nothing else,  Devotion or Counter is always nice to have).

No comments on the new special weapons added to the arsenal?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on August 14, 2013, 08:11:32 AM
New special weapons? I have no idea, sorry. I'm not even sure which ones you added. @_@
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on August 14, 2013, 11:03:02 AM
Every one below Weapon Breaker.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on August 25, 2013, 12:11:56 PM
Question one of the super robot upgrades:
Quote
Mighty:You can expend 1 energy to make all of the super robot's in built weapons deal +1 damage. In the case of the main weapon it deals +2 damage instead. Picking this option multiple times allows you to spend extra energy to get a bigger bonus.
Is the bonus to the weapon's damage meant to last one one round or do you reduce your max energy for a given damage boost and the damage bonus lasts, like some kind of energy based Power Attack?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on August 25, 2013, 06:51:53 PM
You spend energy per attack in an individual basis.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on August 25, 2013, 09:50:48 PM
Then it is unclear since it says all your weapons get that buff whenever you activate it. It would clearer if it was one weapon at a time; the one whose dmg is being buffed. If all weapons get one buffed attack per use then just add that it applies only on their next attack instead of an indefinite amount of time.

Also curious as to why you can get the hyper jammer in the Arsenal but not the regular jammer.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on August 27, 2013, 10:49:17 AM
Another question that just stroke me.
Mechas are destroyed when they reach 0 hit points, but what happens if they take nonlethal damage equal to their remaining hit points (or more). Are they disabled?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on August 29, 2013, 11:35:39 AM
Then it is unclear since it says all your weapons get that buff whenever you activate it. It would clearer if it was one weapon at a time; the one whose dmg is being buffed. If all weapons get one buffed attack per use then just add that it applies only on their next attack instead of an indefinite amount of time.
Should be clarified now.

Also curious as to why you can get the hyper jammer in the Arsenal but not the regular jammer.
Very well, just let me decide what level it should be.

Another question that just stroke me.
Mechas are destroyed when they reach 0 hit points, but what happens if they take nonlethal damage equal to their remaining hit points (or more). Are they disabled?
As machines, mechas are immune to nonlethal damage, just as you can't deal nonlethal damage to a house or catapult.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: veekie on August 30, 2013, 11:33:35 AM
Theoretically you could deliver disabling attacks in the form of energy overloads, damaging sensors, vents or joints, but mecha design is too varied for it to be consistent.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on August 30, 2013, 11:55:37 AM
And attacking such sensible weaknesses will utterly fail when you get to super robots. Logical weak points? What're they? :lmao
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: veekie on August 30, 2013, 12:02:31 PM
Actually most of those examples I've seen are in Super Robot media. The monster-of-the-day loves to use an obscure attack to disable the super robot so they actually have to try something different so that their finishing move works.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on August 30, 2013, 12:11:44 PM
Actually most of those examples I've seen are in Super Robot media. The monster-of-the-day loves to use an obscure attack to disable the super robot so they actually have to try something different so that their finishing move works.

I said sensible. If it's obscure or requires being a particular monster, isn't that already not sensible? :p

Mmm, but it was more a comment on the 'variable design' thing. No two Super Robots seem to share a design, ever, so they all end up with slightly different weaknesses, making 'destroy them' basically the only option.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: veekie on August 30, 2013, 12:39:05 PM
More that things like redundancies, backup systems and shielding seem to happen more in Reals, giving them a graceful failure path as you take out their primary systems and cripple the secondaries.
For supers you just need to target their unobtainium, or pour glue on their joints.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on August 30, 2013, 12:40:11 PM
More that things like redundancies, backup systems and shielding seem to happen more in Reals, giving them a graceful failure path as you take out their primary systems and cripple the secondaries.
For supers you just need to target their unobtainium, or pour glue on their joints.

And pray that the pilot is asleep or something so it actually... sticks? :lmao
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on September 06, 2013, 04:55:40 PM
A Numan gets this ability:
Quote
Mixed Heritage: A Numan can count himself as any race for qualifying for feats, class abilities and prestige classes. If a Numan picks Monster Blooded, she automatically gains the related Monster Hybrid feat.
Perhaps it would be better to rephrase to say that the Numan can simply enter the respective monstrous classes as if he had the related Monster Hybrid feat as opposed to actually acquiring the feat. Otherwise a Numan could choose EVERY feat he gains to be a Monster Blooded feat and just retrain or "Embrace/Shun the Dark Chaos" the free Monster Hybrid feats into something else, effectively getting a number of ability points equal to the amount of feats they would normally have (or more if the feats replacing the Monster Hybrid feats are more Monster Blooded feats).
The infinite ability score cheat is easy to DM ban but I thought I'd point it out.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on September 09, 2013, 02:20:41 AM
Another thing that just got me thinking.
Mecha's aren't affected by abilities that increase their size, but what about abilities like Powerful Build? That abilities allows you to behave as if you were bigger without actually being bigger. If it does carry over to the mecha, does it allow it to use its weapons as if it was bigger as well, die size increase and so on?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on September 09, 2013, 08:56:06 AM
A Numan gets this ability:
Quote
Mixed Heritage: A Numan can count himself as any race for qualifying for feats, class abilities and prestige classes. If a Numan picks Monster Blooded, she automatically gains the related Monster Hybrid feat.
Perhaps it would be better to rephrase to say that the Numan can simply enter the respective monstrous classes as if he had the related Monster Hybrid feat as opposed to actually acquiring the feat. Otherwise a Numan could choose EVERY feat he gains to be a Monster Blooded feat and just retrain or "Embrace/Shun the Dark Chaos" the free Monster Hybrid feats into something else, effectively getting a number of ability points equal to the amount of feats they would normally have (or more if the feats replacing the Monster Hybrid feats are more Monster Blooded feats).
The infinite ability score cheat is easy to DM ban but I thought I'd point it out.
That falls on my auto-ban list, but I guess editing your suggestion doesn't hurt.

Another thing that just got me thinking.
Mecha's aren't affected by abilities that increase their size, but what about abilities like Powerful Build? That abilities allows you to behave as if you were bigger without actually being bigger. If it does carry over to the mecha, does it allow it to use its weapons as if it was bigger as well, die size increase and so on?
Clarified that Powerful Build doesn't apply as well.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on September 10, 2013, 08:59:52 AM
I cannot find a note on the subject of Heavy weapons being used for pilot maneuvers.
Many maneuvers allow you to do something that involves making an attack with a weapon of your choice, but most of these maneuvers take a standard action while a Heavy weapon normally requires a fullround action. Unless a ruling is done on using Heavy weapons for these maneuvers, it makes it possible to use them as a standard action with these maneuvers. Just in case it was not intended.

IE:
Quote
Disabling Hit (Ace Pilot LvL 2 maneuver)
Standard action initiation
When you initiate this strike, make a single attack against an enemy. If you hit with that choose one weapon of your enemy. That enemy can't use that weapon for until the beginning of your next turn.

Then there are maneuvers like Return Fire (Ace Pilot 2) that allows you to make an attack as an immediate action as part of the counter. Not sure a weapon used with a fullround action is supposed to be usable as an immediate action with a level 2 counter.

Another concern:
Quote
Area:Instead of a normal shot, you may make the weapon fire a  line with the width of your mecha and the same lenght as the first range increment of the weapon. Roll to hit against all targets inside the line. If you target an oponent bigger than you with this, the line needs to pass trough the middle of their position.
I wasn't under the impression that mecha ranged weapons had range increments.
I see they have a 'range' section, which seems to be fixed.
A Gespent's Split Missiles have a 50 mu range. Are those meant to actually be a range increment? If so, the misunderstanding is probably due to maneuvers and spells having a range indicator, while weapons generally have a range increment property rather than a range property.

Since I'm already talking of maneuver range, here is a question on Multitarget (Ace Pilot 3)
Quote
When you initiate this maneuver, you may perform one basic attack against each enemy within reach of your weapon.
The maneuvers mentions 'reach' but it can be used with any weapon and is limited by ammo. The description, along with the maneuver's name, suggest that it is also meant to be used with ranged weapons, but ranged weapons have range/range increment and little reach to speak of. Is it meant to use a ranged weapon's range instead of its reach?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on September 10, 2013, 12:53:39 PM
Yes, maneuvers that allow you to fire weapons as standard/immediate also work for heavy weapons, and Support Attack works as well.

Quote from: Anomander
Quote
Area:Instead of a normal shot, you may make the weapon fire a  line with the width of your mecha and the same lenght as the first range increment of the weapon. Roll to hit against all targets inside the line. If you target an oponent bigger than you with this, the line needs to pass trough the middle of their position.
I wasn't under the impression that mecha ranged weapons had range increments.
I see they have a 'range' section, which seems to be fixed.
A Gespent's Split Missiles have a 50 mu range. Are those meant to actually be a range increment? If so, the misunderstanding is probably due to maneuvers and spells having a range indicator, while weapons generally have a range increment property rather than a range property.
You're right, replaced Range with Range Increment on the Real Robots and Arsenal lists.

Quote from: Anomander
Since I'm already talking of maneuver range, here is a question on Multitarget (Ace Pilot 3)
Quote
When you initiate this maneuver, you may perform one basic attack against each enemy within reach of your weapon.
The maneuvers mentions 'reach' but it can be used with any weapon and is limited by ammo. The description, along with the maneuver's name, suggest that it is also meant to be used with ranged weapons, but ranged weapons have range/range increment and little reach to speak of. Is it meant to use a ranged weapon's range instead of its reach?
Yes.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on September 26, 2013, 08:07:10 AM
(click to show/hide)

How do you use this with any kind of attack action that isn't just an AoO, barring doing something to give yourself extra standard/fullround actions. Cause it would expire before your next normally available standard/full attack action.  :-\
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on September 26, 2013, 07:13:19 PM
It was suposed to be a swift action, fixed.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on November 28, 2013, 04:04:17 AM
Miniaturization (SRU) states it can be selected once every 4th pilot level, down to diminutive at pilot level 12. Shouldn't it end at Fine at pilot level 16, as colossal is?

Also, if your mecha is shrunk to diminutive/tiny, its reach on mecha scale becomes 0 mu. If you translate that to normal scale, 0 mu is also 0 feet.
So does a mecha that is diminutive/tiny on mecha scale and medium/large on regular scale have to enter the space of those it means to attack in order to hit them, since their regular scale reach is technically 0 feet?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on November 28, 2013, 06:12:22 AM
I'm curious why a small creature can't get all the way down to Mecha Size Fine (since isn't Diminutive Large?)

I think your problem here, Ano, is using its mecha scale reach rather than just calculating reach fresh for its size on the normal scale.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on November 28, 2013, 06:53:06 AM
I know that would be the normal thing to do. But I'm talking straight conversion of scale since mechas weren't meant to behave on normal scale and that is how they technically should work as written (since Medium-size in MU is colossal-size in normal, but its stats are always those of a medium-sized creature on both scales).
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on November 28, 2013, 06:54:45 AM
So... why are we adopting the counter-intuitive approach when this stuff has, to my knowledge, been used once? :huh
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on November 28, 2013, 07:11:14 AM
I am not adopting it. It is merely read as written. Maybe this is supposed to happen for all I know.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on November 28, 2013, 07:15:25 AM
So... what? You're extrapolating that from size penalties not applying against normal-scale enemies to 'reach does not increase from 0'? Despite the fact that a Medium-sized mecha (in normal terms) is fully capable of moving and of humanoid dimensions, and would consequently have at least 5' reach?

... also, this makes me really want to play an Anthromorphic Animal Butterfly Sneaky Type//Super Pilot (if only I could find a way to get those last two size categories down. :()
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on November 28, 2013, 07:43:27 AM
Not really. I am asking if, because Tiny/Diminutive mu-sized mechas are using the same stats as Tiny/Diminutive-sized creatures on normal scale, they also share the reach of 0 feet/0 mu.

A Diminutive mecha has the same space as a large creature, but it is not large. They have the stats of a diminutive creature except for weapon size. A medium-sized creature would have the same trouble hitting the size bonus to AC of that mecha as if it was diminutive even though it is larger that it is.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on November 28, 2013, 07:53:23 AM
But that's size bonuses, not reach. Need more evidence than that to justify making the size rules even wordier. :/
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on November 28, 2013, 07:58:49 AM
No no no. That was only an example of why a Diminutive mecha isn't treated the same as a large creature.
Quote
Miniaturization: The super robot becomes one size category smaller, gaining all standard advantages and penalties except ability score changes, and it's Natural armor and In Built weapons damage doesn't change either. This can only be taken once for every 4 pilot levels, up to diminutive size at 12th pilot level.
Notice that it states that all the standard advantages and penalties are gained. This is meant to include reach, I would think.

Also, the Sentient SRU Imprint states the SuRo gets its pilot's stats while it is out of it. Are these stats meant to be limited to his ability scores, or is it all his stats, in general.

The Transform: Fighter also increases your speed by 1.5
Just to make it isn't multiplying it by 1.5 instead of adding 1.5 your speed.
Someone with a speed of 30 in the former would have 45 and 75 in the later (and how it is currently written).
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on November 29, 2013, 04:29:34 PM
Miniaturization (SRU) states it can be selected once every 4th pilot level, down to diminutive at pilot level 12. Shouldn't it end at Fine at pilot level 16, as colossal is?
Because that would end with a medium-sized mecha, which is basically mechanized armor, and we already have Moon Vanguard for that.

Also, if your mecha is shrunk to diminutive/tiny, its reach on mecha scale becomes 0 mu. If you translate that to normal scale, 0 mu is also 0 feet.
So does a mecha that is diminutive/tiny on mecha scale and medium/large on regular scale have to enter the space of those it means to attack in order to hit them, since their regular scale reach is technically 0 feet?
Yes.

Also, the Sentient SRU Imprint states the SuRo gets its pilot's stats while it is out of it. Are these stats meant to be limited to his ability scores, or is it all his stats, in general.
Just ability scores, otherwise it would be redudant to include feats and skills.

The Transform: Fighter also increases your speed by 1.5
Just to make it isn't multiplying it by 1.5 instead of adding 1.5 your speed.
Someone with a speed of 30 in the former would have 45 and 75 in the later (and how it is currently written).
Multiplications in D&D only add unless noted otherwise.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on November 29, 2013, 04:35:16 PM
Miniaturization (SRU) states it can be selected once every 4th pilot level, down to diminutive at pilot level 12. Shouldn't it end at Fine at pilot level 16, as colossal is?
Because that would end with a medium-sized mecha, which is basically mechanized armor, and we already have Moon Vanguard for that.

Except Moon Vanguard can grow and doesn't need for you to be smaller than the mecha itself, does it?

Also, if your mecha is shrunk to diminutive/tiny, its reach on mecha scale becomes 0 mu. If you translate that to normal scale, 0 mu is also 0 feet.
So does a mecha that is diminutive/tiny on mecha scale and medium/large on regular scale have to enter the space of those it means to attack in order to hit them, since their regular scale reach is technically 0 feet?
Yes.

Wait, so if we had one Diminutive mecha against a party of unarmoured adventurers, it would need to enter their spaces to attack? :eh
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on November 29, 2013, 04:48:46 PM
Moon Vanguard needs you to be smaller than the mecha itself, and the "growth" lasts a pretty short time.

Wait, so if we had one Diminutive mecha against a party of unarmoured adventurers, it would need to enter their spaces to attack? :eh

If you were fighting in mecha scale, and the mecha wanted to get in melee, yes. But the adventurers wouldn't get an aoo since their own reach would be 0.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on November 29, 2013, 04:51:51 PM
Moon Vanguard needs you to be smaller than the mecha itself, and the "growth" lasts a pretty short time.

... so you can only get a medium-sized mecha with a small race? No different from this. And you can still achieve the same effect as a medium-sized Moon Vanguard by picking miniaturisation whenever you can. :huh

And short time or not, it's still an option. Pick miniaturisation and you're putting finite resources towards always being small.

Quote
Wait, so if we had one Diminutive mecha against a party of unarmoured adventurers, it would need to enter their spaces to attack? :eh

If you were fighting in mecha scale, and the mecha wanted to get in melee, yes. But the adventurers wouldn't get an aoo since their own reach would be 0.
[/quote]

But on normal scale? :O
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on November 29, 2013, 05:30:26 PM
Moon Vanguard needs you to be smaller than the mecha itself, and the "growth" lasts a pretty short time.

... so you can only get a medium-sized mecha with a small race? No different from this. And you can still achieve the same effect as a medium-sized Moon Vanguard by picking miniaturisation whenever you can. :huh
My bad, you need to be the same size as the mecha or smaller for Moon Vanguard.

And short time or not, it's still an option. Pick miniaturisation and you're putting finite resources towards always being small.
You're missing the part where the actual mecha has mecha speed and mecha range all the time. Part of the mecha basis is that mechas won't fit in tight places where regular humanoids can escape into. But if miniaturization goes all the way to diminutive, then we have the whole evil subterranean society/underground HQ of the good guys wiped out by a single kiting supersonic mecha that easily goes anywhere the dudes on foot can, but has unmatched speed and range.

But on normal scale? :O
Then the miniaturized mecha would  be large-sized, and be able to punch them from 10 feet away.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on November 29, 2013, 05:38:16 PM
And short time or not, it's still an option. Pick miniaturisation and you're putting finite resources towards always being small.
You're missing the part where the actual mecha has mecha speed and mecha range all the time. Part of the mecha basis is that mechas won't fit in tight places where regular humanoids can escape into. But if miniaturization goes all the way to diminutive, then we have the whole evil subterranean society/underground HQ of the good guys wiped out by a single kiting supersonic mecha that easily goes anywhere the dudes on foot can, but has unmatched speed and range.

This is at level 16. :/

... also, are we assuming the guy in question has Spring Attack and/or Shot on the Run, here? :huh
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on November 29, 2013, 06:16:14 PM
The idea of having a Fine mecha was mostly intended for smaller creatures. Since a mecha cannot be smaller than his pilot to begin with. Nanoarmor have different rules since they work as armors while a mecha is more of an armed vehicle.
I don't mind your decision. It was mere curiosity.

Quote
Multiplications in D&D only add unless noted otherwise.
Yes, but in your homebrew you previously told me the contrary; multipliers stack unless you say otherwise.
If you're using it now, thought, then great!

In this case, however, it isn't a situation of multiplicative addition as ruled in D&D (that being the use of the sum of the involved multipliers instead of multiplying them together). Since there is only one multiplier, it has no other multiplier to add itself to (such as two doubles becoming a triple instead of a quadruple). You're adding a value to a stat, that value being the stat multiplied.
This situation is the question of whether the multiplied value is added to the result or if it multiplies the result.
If it is only meant to multiply the value, without any addition whatsoever, it should just multiply it instead of adding something to it.

Quote
But on normal scale? :O
Technically nothing special should happen on normal scale.
You'd have a combat map for those in normal scale and one for the mechas on mecha scale.
The diminutive mecha would share its space with the non-mechas on mecha scale to attack them.
The only problem with that is determining where the mecha is supposed to be located on normal scale, where precision actually matters to the non-mechas. Which makes Osle's ruling of giving them normal scale reach an ideal solution.
Quote
... also, are we assuming the guy in question has Spring Attack and/or Shot on the Run, here?
Nah, it is all about the fact that their movement and attack range is in MU scale. You can kite them easily when your 5ft step sends you 30ft away.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on November 29, 2013, 06:28:17 PM
Quote
... also, are we assuming the guy in question has Spring Attack and/or Shot on the Run, here?
Nah, it is all about the fact that their movement and attack range is in MU scale. You can kite them easily when your 5ft step sends you 30ft away.

Would still provoke an AoO (with real scale being medium) without Spring Attack, and without Shot on the Run you wouldn't be able to get far enough away to prevent retribution unless the enemies have no ranged attacks anyway, which makes kiting them kind of easy.

Plus you become vulnerable to all those AoO's you might be able to ignore.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on November 29, 2013, 06:46:20 PM
I'm not sure I'm following you. I don't see how those apply.
5ft steps being an example. You don't need to move in range before moving away with Shot on the Run when you can just always keep them within your insane range and move out of theirs when they get close enough (assuming large open spaces without obstacles, which works for normal mechas vs nonmecha combat anyway).
Anyway, it certainly give an advantage. Which is pretty much the one reason one would want a smaller mecha: getting in smaller places without tearing them apart.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on November 29, 2013, 06:58:56 PM
If a mecha is inside, I'd imagine range would be severely curtailed by default. If a mecha is not inside, this argument is moot because it's about whether allowing mecha to be Fine on an MU scale would make sense or not.

Well... going inside in a mecha is kind of the whole point of hammering down their damage like a madman. That, and hiding, and some bonuses.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on January 05, 2014, 08:34:24 AM
So on the Real Robot list we have the RapieCage at rank VI. It's Over Oxtongue Rifle B mode has a range of 75 dam?
Does this translate into 'dam huge range' or something? -_-'
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on January 06, 2014, 07:14:09 AM
A surviving typo from a much earlier version. Erased. Hopefully the last of its kind.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on March 14, 2014, 07:36:14 AM
Nerfed Strike to apply just to one attack, but also reduced the cost back to 20 SP.

Buffed up Assault to allow it to work with fullround maneuvers, heavy weapons and charges.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on May 29, 2014, 08:47:15 PM
I just thought of something right now while looking at my snazzy new laser in the phantasy star game.

Why don't mechas have options for adding appendages? (Adding for Supers, having multi-limbed models for Reals)

Multiweapon Fighting Mechas could be cool too  :pout
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on May 30, 2014, 01:46:25 PM
The Extra upgrade for Super Robots could be described as extra limbs if you wish.

Multiweapon fighting is already possible with most of the super robots. The Wild Wurger for example has the Beetle Crusher in one arm, Triple Vulkans in the other, the Raptor Wings on its back and still has a couple free hands to wield Metal Sword.

Actually, the intention was that if you take Arsenal Weapons, you can fit them in shoulders, or waist, or back, and fire them all simultaneously as long as you-re willing to take the multipweapon fighting penalties.

Which reminds me, llet us see if this weekend I can finally post an initial form of the mecha monster class. The basic idea would be that you pick one central frame with a number of slots, and then add specific bioweapons and bioupgrades from a list.

No, wait, those would be your minions. The class itself would be the queen that mass produces those. Or you can also spawn swarms of smaller monsters that attack as one entity.

Also, what would people think of ship captains being able to deploy swarms of fighter jets?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on May 30, 2014, 01:57:09 PM
Sort of... super-funnels?

Woo, bio-monsters! Hopefully with nothing in common with the Gunbuster/Diebuster Space Monsters because we need a humanity left. :p
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on June 03, 2014, 01:18:09 PM
Right, while writing the space monster class, I wanted to add stuff like their weapons grabbing/disarming/slowing down targets. And then decided it would be worthwhile to add some new mecha weapon special properties for both standardization's sake and make weapon choice more interesting than "grab whatever deals more damage while aiming for power and/or rending".

Real Robot and Ship Captain units have already been updated, and Super Robots get a new upgrade option to add new properties to their in-built weapons (but no more than one per weapon).

Also finished stating up a decent amount of bioframes and bioweapons, but still need stuff to fill the rest of the class. Here is the rough plan so far:
-Queen can nom pretty much anything that isn't solid dry rock to make minions. She however can only keep control of a few at a time, giving them a big bonus while nearby. The rest can be given basic instincts to control their behavior to a very limited degree like Hunting or Lurking, but they don't get the stat bonus, so they're pretty much crap.
-Queen gets Real/Super spirits, can choose for a spirit to affect all of her currently controled minions with a single use instead of herself.
-Following on the above, the queen's pilot bonus feats can be transfered to minions.
-Queen herself has two main paths. Either she's a big monster herself with her own bioframe and bioweapons that can also grant mutations and whatnot, or she's a loli regular-sized humanoid that gets to pick a couple schools to learn maneuvers from. In that case the minions themselves can skip bioweapons and pick some maneuvers and stances of their own. Why? Because I love Knight Run damnit! :P
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on June 03, 2014, 03:32:42 PM
So, does the space monster class gain immunity to the insides of stars? >.>
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on June 13, 2014, 02:41:38 PM
So, having read the timeline first:

1) Formatting could do with improvement. For instance, the numbers are counting down--but the present day has a minus sign too? What sort of calendar system (except for geological timescales) works backwards from the current date? Record keeping would be a bitch. As would learning history.

2) Terra seems fairly inappropriate for something that isn't Earth.

3) What, no development of fusion power, or utilisation of magic as a power source? Everything still seems to be fission-powered. And nuclear fission androids sounds impractical.



Technoillithids? :O

Quote
Almost all of them Newman tough, just some very few Newmans among their numbers.

I think that line needs rewriting.



All in all, seems like an interesting start, though an editor might come in useful.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on June 14, 2014, 02:54:06 AM
Will Infernal Mechas be an actual player option as part of the Mecha Galaxy setting?
Or is that just a fluff thing.

Just sounds interesting.

Same with what appears to be the opposite (those mechas granted to servants of Machine Gods)

Sounds like stuff that could work as Alternate Class Features maybe?

Whoa, could Technotopia be some Ghost in the Shell inspired D&D stuffs? That could be interesting :D

Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on June 14, 2014, 09:54:51 AM
Grork's preparations took almost 100 years. Is it supposed to be normal that he was so old when he fell in battle? Especially since it begins with him uniting the tribes... as an infant?
Though maybe he got lifespan increases from something. Fairly possible. Just a point I though possibly relevant.

There is this massive succession of huge technological breakthroughs over 200 years (from medieval tech to mechas, nuclear power, bionics/androids, cloning/gene-splicing, warp speed...), then more than three thousand years of small steps.
Its a bit odd.

Does Alpha Nei's group become a faction all the years after? Maybe across the Space Sailors?

Where does the Federation of Technotopia come from? Colonists of a planet that got a meaningful amount of influence?
They just appear as a faction right now without really saying where they come from in all of this.

That's all I got for now.

Quote
Whoa, could Technotopia be some Ghost in the Shell inspired D&D stuffs? That could be interesting :D
Oh dear yes. Though the entire population feeling against staying in a shell of flesh would be odd. Especially given the discrepancies in social classes with the poor not really being able to keep upgrading, leading to no poor caste since they all end up as semi-sentient servants. Bionics would probably be the solution, with the most part of the population using upgrades of some kind. Cyber brain, a better arm, better eyes... a fully android body... Having many AI-guided robots and androids would be a given considering the technological specialties of the faction. It would also give the possibility of groups with different mentalities. Like people in the ghettos that are mostly natural but have no means of leaving (or no desire to) and despise the unnatural replacement of body parts for mechanical/bionic 'upgrades'. Along with possible groups of beings so disconnected with material things that they mostly live in the 'net'.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on June 14, 2014, 10:02:15 AM
Minor pedantry: referring to something as 'the government' when it's got no centralisation or governing body at all also seems inaccurate.

It's got even less oversight than the Holy Roman Empire did towards the end. O_o
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on June 14, 2014, 06:15:54 PM
Thanks for the replies!

Expanded timeline, added some new stuff to the second post.

Also if any of you has run into any fantasy/sci-fi inspiring pictures that think would go nice with any of the events/factions, or that you think should be NPCs/factions, post them in!

So, having read the timeline first:

1) Formatting could do with improvement. For instance, the numbers are counting down--but the present day has a minus sign too? What sort of calendar system (except for geological timescales) works backwards from the current date? Record keeping would be a bitch. As would learning history.

2) Terra seems fairly inappropriate for something that isn't Earth.

3) What, no development of fusion power, or utilisation of magic as a power source? Everything still seems to be fission-powered. And nuclear fission androids sounds impractical.
1)Remade the year counting system.
2) New name edited in. If you have better ideas for it, I'm all hears.
3)Added fusion power to the fluff. I guess that arcane/divine mechas can count as running on magic.

Technoillithids? :O
Not my intention, but sounds like a great idea for a subfaction!

Quote
Almost all of them Newman tough, just some very few Newmans among their numbers.

I think that line needs rewriting.
Fixed.

Will Infernal Mechas be an actual player option as part of the Mecha Galaxy setting?
Or is that just a fluff thing.

Just sounds interesting.

Same with what appears to be the opposite (those mechas granted to servants of Machine Gods)

Sounds like stuff that could work as Alternate Class Features maybe?
Something I would like to work on the future yes, but for now I would rather work on expanding the fluff itself, specific rules can come later. :P

Whoa, could Technotopia be some Ghost in the Shell inspired D&D stuffs? That could be interesting :D
Definetely intended.

Grork's preparations took almost 100 years. Is it supposed to be normal that he was so old when he fell in battle? Especially since it begins with him uniting the tribes... as an infant?
Though maybe he got lifespan increases from something. Fairly possible. Just a point I though possibly relevant.

There is this massive succession of huge technological breakthroughs over 200 years (from medieval tech to mechas, nuclear power, bionics/androids, cloning/gene-splicing, warp speed...), then more than three thousand years of small steps.
Its a bit odd.
Taken care with the new timeline.

Does Alpha Nei's group become a faction all the years after? Maybe across the Space Sailors?
Hmm, good idea, added!

Where does the Federation of Technotopia come from? Colonists of a planet that got a meaningful amount of influence?
They just appear as a faction right now without really saying where they come from in all of this.
Developed as well on the expanded timeline.

Quote
Whoa, could Technotopia be some Ghost in the Shell inspired D&D stuffs? That could be interesting :D
Oh dear yes. Though the entire population feeling against staying in a shell of flesh would be odd. Especially given the discrepancies in social classes with the poor not really being able to keep upgrading, leading to no poor caste since they all end up as semi-sentient servants. Bionics would probably be the solution, with the most part of the population using upgrades of some kind. Cyber brain, a better arm, better eyes... a fully android body... Having many AI-guided robots and androids would be a given considering the technological specialties of the faction. It would also give the possibility of groups with different mentalities. Like people in the ghettos that are mostly natural but have no means of leaving (or no desire to) and despise the unnatural replacement of body parts for mechanical/bionic 'upgrades'. Along with possible groups of beings so disconnected with material things that they mostly live in the 'net'.
Oh, that's definetely the kind of thing I wanted, definetely gonna add it, thanks! :D

Minor pedantry: referring to something as 'the government' when it's got no centralisation or governing body at all also seems inaccurate.

It's got even less oversight than the Holy Roman Empire did towards the end. O_o
Arrogance goes a long way as far as titles go around. :p
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on June 14, 2014, 06:44:21 PM
Apple references? I am disappointed. :p

Though I am now inclined to investigate how God//Einst Queen could be worked. Still think Planetar would work better. Drone buffing! Just thought of it because of the machine gods. XD
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on July 16, 2014, 12:49:57 PM
Added a couple of worlds and elves and orcs fluff, plus racial alternate class features in the races thread.

If people like this approach, I intend to repeat the process with dwarves and halflings at least.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on July 16, 2014, 12:55:57 PM
I am bad at balance concerns, but I am amused that elven super pilots apparently end up piloting a tree. Also, I am reminded of Tenchi Muyo for some reason.

Quote
At 18th level, if the battleship is destroyed, the ship ca the wrecks

That needs to be rewritten because it looks like a few words got removed.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on July 16, 2014, 02:06:47 PM
Steal from all sources Pure coincidence I'm sure.

Also cleaned up that bit.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on July 16, 2014, 08:00:49 PM
I like the possibility of the elven planet awakening to sentience.

The new stuff looks really good so far. Can't find anything to complain about yet :)
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Michael Lightning on August 18, 2014, 09:35:27 PM
So, Ranieh's putting together a game for this, and we'd like to have a Captain, if at all possible. The thread is here: http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=14425.new#new
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on August 18, 2014, 09:39:23 PM
We would? I didn't know about this. D:
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Michael Lightning on August 19, 2014, 08:58:30 AM
So, I have a question about one of the feats; I Am Invincible allows you to make an item out of pure metal, including adding its properties to one of the built-in weapons. One of the properties is 'cannot be enchanted or otherwise improved'. Does that mean the Super Robot upgrades don't work with it, or do they?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on August 19, 2014, 09:15:59 AM
You're applying its properties to the already-upgraded weapon, rather than making it out of pure metal and then upgrading it. Nothing there that should stop it from, say, going on top of a buffed Main Weapon.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Michael Lightning on August 19, 2014, 09:45:37 AM
That's what I was wanting to clear up.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on August 21, 2014, 12:30:44 PM
I think there's an increasing mecha storage problem with Battleships. Once you have non-Real Robots, size demands are liable to get bigger and bigger-huge Super Robots, Drones--but a Battleship is capped at 1 Colossal-sized mecha. The best solution other than 'nerf yourself' is currently 'leave mecha behind (I Am Invincible) and use Burning Justice' and 'devour drones, remake drones constantly, hope to not be attacked (Einst)'.

The main issue is that there's no facility for bringing other things along with the warp travel options and teleport at any point. (As a side note, there's no practical option for interplanetary travel thus presented, when the setting requires interstellar--12,000 miles for max teleport range is nothing)
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on August 21, 2014, 12:57:47 PM
I think there's an increasing mecha storage problem with Battleships. Once you have non-Real Robots, size demands are liable to get bigger and bigger-huge Super Robots, Drones--but a Battleship is capped at 1 Colossal-sized mecha. The best solution other than 'nerf yourself' is currently 'leave mecha behind (I Am Invincible) and use Burning Justice' and 'devour drones, remake drones constantly, hope to not be attacked (Einst)'.
Or you can go Ship Captain/Super Robot to further increase your battleship's size. The very multiclass rules for that are based on super humongous Macross after all. :p

The main issue is that there's no facility for bringing other things along with the warp travel options and teleport at any point. (As a side note, there's no practical option for interplanetary travel thus presented, when the setting requires interstellar--12,000 miles for max teleport range is nothing)
Good points, allowed for the basic option of warp speed to pimp your movement speed up to 10 000 times, which should cover interplanetary travel nicely enough, and then boosted the teleport to 5 000 000 000 000 mu per pilot level, which should cover interstellar travel, even if you still need to make multiple jumps. Sounds good, or did I royally screw the math again?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on August 21, 2014, 01:07:49 PM
I think there's an increasing mecha storage problem with Battleships. Once you have non-Real Robots, size demands are liable to get bigger and bigger-huge Super Robots, Drones--but a Battleship is capped at 1 Colossal-sized mecha. The best solution other than 'nerf yourself' is currently 'leave mecha behind (I Am Invincible) and use Burning Justice' and 'devour drones, remake drones constantly, hope to not be attacked (Einst)'.
Or you can go Ship Captain/Super Robot to further increase your battleship's size. The very multiclass rules for that are based on super humongous Macross after all. :p

I keep thinking about Gunbuster and the Exelion. Sure, it only had one Gunbuster, which fits neatly into the 'Colossal' bracket, but it had vast amounts of smaller stuff. :P

It also seems weird to require multiclassing to get the one size increase. It's not something that can really start being an issue until level 12 or so (when Super Robots can hit Gargantuan and take up half the space on their own, minimum), so perhaps Battleships could get their cap raised by one size? Fluffwise, ships being expanded to cope with bigger robots make sense. :lmao

Quote
The main issue is that there's no facility for bringing other things along with the warp travel options and teleport at any point. (As a side note, there's no practical option for interplanetary travel thus presented, when the setting requires interstellar--12,000 miles for max teleport range is nothing)
Good points, allowed for the basic option of warp speed to pimp your movement speed up to 10 000 times, which should cover interplanetary travel nicely enough, and then boosted the teleport to 5 000 000 000 000 mu per pilot level, which should cover interstellar travel, even if you still need to make multiple jumps. Sounds good, or did I royally screw the math again?

2 weeks at lowish levels to get from Earth to Mars at their nearest? Hm, should fit. Not like this is hard science where we need to hit relativistic speeds.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on August 21, 2014, 01:26:15 PM
Did you take in account that the ship's speed scales up with ship captain level and you can equip speed-boosting acessories?

Anyway, added a feat for further size increases for ship captain, that also brings some extra arsenal space.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on August 21, 2014, 01:33:01 PM
Correction, about a week at level 6 with no speed-boosting arsenal upgrades. I was working off of 30 MU.

So two months from Earth to the far side of its orbit to run into Mars. Not bad going, all things considered.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on August 21, 2014, 08:17:53 PM
I think there's an increasing mecha storage problem with Battleships. Once you have non-Real Robots, size demands are liable to get bigger and bigger-huge Super Robots, Drones--but a Battleship is capped at 1 Colossal-sized mecha. The best solution other than 'nerf yourself' is currently 'leave mecha behind (I Am Invincible) and use Burning Justice' and 'devour drones, remake drones constantly, hope to not be attacked (Einst)'.
Or you can go Ship Captain/Super Robot to further increase your battleship's size. The very multiclass rules for that are based on super humongous Macross after all. :p

I keep thinking about Gunbuster and the Exelion. Sure, it only had one Gunbuster, which fits neatly into the 'Colossal' bracket, but it had vast amounts of smaller stuff. :P

I don't see where the problem was?
Cause just cause a Battleship got big enough to be able to finally store 1 Colossal Mecha doesn't mean it can't store anything else but that 1 Mecha?
Or am I misunderstanding something?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on August 21, 2014, 08:27:02 PM
I think there's an increasing mecha storage problem with Battleships. Once you have non-Real Robots, size demands are liable to get bigger and bigger-huge Super Robots, Drones--but a Battleship is capped at 1 Colossal-sized mecha. The best solution other than 'nerf yourself' is currently 'leave mecha behind (I Am Invincible) and use Burning Justice' and 'devour drones, remake drones constantly, hope to not be attacked (Einst)'.
Or you can go Ship Captain/Super Robot to further increase your battleship's size. The very multiclass rules for that are based on super humongous Macross after all. :p

I keep thinking about Gunbuster and the Exelion. Sure, it only had one Gunbuster, which fits neatly into the 'Colossal' bracket, but it had vast amounts of smaller stuff. :P

I don't see where the problem was?
Cause just cause a Battleship got big enough to be able to finally store 1 Colossal Mecha doesn't mean it can't store anything else but that 1 Mecha?
Or am I misunderstanding something?

It can store 1 mecha of its size category.

What the Exelion had is 1 colossal mecha*, and a whole ton of stuff. Fighters, things that would register as Diminutive or Tiny on an MU scale, etc (and in the sixth OVA, and even bigger ship was prepared).

*Two Gargantuan spaceships/combining mecha.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on August 21, 2014, 09:06:32 PM

It can store 1 mecha of its size category.

Plus a number of mecha of the next size category down.
Plus more stuff of the 3rd size down.
Plus even more stuff of the 4th size down.
And so on and so forth.

Which is where my confusion comes from on what you are saying.
Cause what I am reading is you saying "If I have a Colossal Ship, I can put 1 Colossal Mecha inside that ship, and nothing else."
Am I wrong?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on August 21, 2014, 09:13:05 PM

It can store 1 mecha of its size category.

Plus a number of mecha of the next size category down.
Plus more stuff of the 3rd size down.
Plus even more stuff of the 4th size down.
And so on and so forth.

Which is where my confusion comes from on what you are saying.
Cause what I am reading is you saying "If I have a Colossal Ship, I can put 1 Colossal Mecha inside that ship, and nothing else."
Am I wrong?

But that's the case.

A 'Colossal' ship has a 'Colossal' storage space.

Or space for two Gargantuan entities.

So if you have a Colossal ship and a Gargantuan Super Robot, you have space for two huge mecha, or four large, or eight medium, or 16 small; and so on. But you can't fit a Colossal, and you can't fit eight medium and a single large.

You basically have a space of 256.

Colossal = 256.
Gargantuan = 128
Huge = 64
Large = 32
Medium = 16
Small = 8
Tiny = 4
Diminutive = 2
Fine = 1

You can fit 128 human-sized mecha in your hangar, but a single colossal. Doesn't stack up with the available area, but D&D is concerned with area a thing takes to stand, not volume.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on August 21, 2014, 09:15:18 PM
Oh? I was pretty sure it was "And" and not "Or" when it came to the hanger space of a Ship.

At the least, I was absolutely certain this had come up in discussion before and it'd been declared as such........
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on August 21, 2014, 09:18:47 PM
Quote
Mecha Transport: A battleship can load and carry one mecha of its own size, two mechas of one size category smaller, four mechas of two size categories smaller, and so on. Entering or exiting a battleship is a move action on the part of the mecha. The battleship can prevent  'aunfriendlies from entering.

I don't see any 'and' implied.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on August 21, 2014, 09:21:20 PM
Quote
Mecha Transport: A battleship can load and carry one mecha of its own size, two mechas of one size category smaller, four mechas of two size categories smaller, and so on. Entering or exiting a battleship is a move action on the part of the mecha. The battleship can prevent  'aunfriendlies from entering.

I don't see any 'and' implied.

Bolded it.
Commas are also not "or" in meaning or use. The use of them in that sentence has them being used to separate a list, not define a set of choices.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on August 21, 2014, 09:25:57 PM
Quote
Mecha Transport: A battleship can load and carry one mecha of its own size, two mechas of one size category smaller, four mechas of two size categories smaller, and so on. Entering or exiting a battleship is a move action on the part of the mecha. The battleship can prevent  'aunfriendlies from entering.

I don't see any 'and' implied.

Bolded it.
Commas are also not "or" in meaning or use. The use of them in that sentence has them being used to separate a list, not define a set of choices.

'eight mecha of three sizes smaller, sixteen of four sizes smaller, thirty-two of five sizes smaller sixty-four of six sizes smaller, one hundred and twenty eight of seven sizes smaller, and two hundred and fifty six of eight sizes smaller'.

Given that I don't believe Os is a native English speaker, I've assumed it's an oversight lacking an 'Or'.

Rather than 'a colossal battleship can contain only one colossal mecha, but it can fit the equivalent of seven more, if they're of smaller sizes'.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on August 21, 2014, 09:29:00 PM
I could just be cheesy and say that Colossal stuff can, within the rules, squeeze into a space one size smaller than them and thus you can now have 2 colossal mechas on 1 colossal ship :p
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Michael Lightning on August 21, 2014, 09:31:07 PM
So, I see my slight remark in the game interest thread has done this...... but eh. I have a bit of a cross-question with Pure Crafting. It says that while using the items, you can't use SLA/Spells, etc. or triggered items like wands and the like. Does that mean that passive magic items (like the stat boost items) still work?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on August 21, 2014, 09:33:56 PM
Yup. Unless you take Purity (the Saint option), magic still affects you.

You can't activate it, but you ain't immune.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Michael Lightning on August 21, 2014, 09:35:05 PM
Yup. Unless you take Purity (the Saint option), magic still affects you.

You can't activate it, but you ain't immune.
Good. I wanted to grab some magic items that will scale into my mech.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Michael Lightning on August 21, 2014, 09:56:02 PM
If the mech is sentient and uses my stats, does that mean that my CON bonus would give it extra HP?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on August 22, 2014, 05:09:08 AM
It's as RD said for mecha storage, if anyone has a better wording for it feel free to post it and I'll edit it in.

If the mech is sentient and uses my stats, does that mean that my CON bonus would give it extra HP?
That's kinda hard to happen since Con bonus applies to HD and mecha have none of it.

I could just be cheesy and say that Colossal stuff can, within the rules, squeeze into a space one size smaller than them and thus you can now have 2 colossal mechas on 1 colossal ship :p
Funny, but the interior of a ship isn't an empty space to allow to use the squeeze rules.

I guess you could have one colossal mecha inside and another riding on top, but that one would be left behind when using warp speed. :p
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on August 22, 2014, 10:11:51 AM
Mecha Transport: A battleship can load and carry one mecha of its own size, or two mechas of one size category smaller, or four mechas of two size categories smaller, and so on. Entering or exiting a battleship is a move action on the part of the mecha. The battleship can prevent  'aunfriendlies from entering.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on August 22, 2014, 04:20:03 PM
Quote
Nature's Oath: At 15th level 1/day, if you would die or your mecha be destroyed while in a location with natural vegetation, you can have trees and vines grow to repair your body and machine. You and your mecha recover all HP and remove all non-instantaneous ill effects from themselves, and can keep acting normally while you remain within 10 miles of the location that brought you back to life. If you go further away, or all the vegetation inside the radius is destroyed, you die.

This replaces the bonus feat a Super Pilot usually gains at 15th level.

I think something is missing to allow you to move more than 10 miles from this place, ever, without dying and making it questionably useful as a replacement feature (sure, I can keep fighting for the one battle... in the right environment, and if we have to move on I drop dead?)

Also rewording, because it currently kills you if you move too far away and your mecha was the one broken.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on August 23, 2014, 02:12:58 PM
A detail I thought I'd point out, in case it wasn't intentional: If a super robot takes a 1 level dip in Ship Captain, they can transform into a humanoid form of huge size, basically getting two Growth upgrades that stacks with those they might want every 4 super pilot levels.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on August 23, 2014, 02:16:29 PM
There needs to be some way to stop that (and they could freely be a Colossal mecha, not simply 'huge'), but restricting multiclasses to picking Growth would mean multiclassing the other way is shooting yourself in the foot. Hm.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on August 23, 2014, 02:54:43 PM
The colossal humanoid would probably get the same restriction in that it doesn't have any mechanical advantage past just being bigger, so you'd mechanically still count as huge-sized.
It could work just as it does for its speed. The transformation is into a normal sized super robot without any size advantage that can get size increases normally. You keep track of the sizes of the battleship form and humanoid form separately. It would probably benefit from Humongous Ship but, since it requires a feat instead of a few upgrade points and the 9 levels in SC limits the maximum growth upgrades that can be taken anyway, that wouldn't be a problem.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on August 23, 2014, 03:14:33 PM
Size means reach.

I'm not a fan of 'colossal ship becomes a medium robot'. Doesn't make sense, and if the inspiration is Macross...
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on August 23, 2014, 03:27:35 PM
Quote
A captain may choose to start with a bigger battleship up to colossal size, but this won't grant any mechanical benefit besides being able to carry more mechas, filling a bigger space and bigger size penalty to AC and attack rolls.
Doesn't include reach.

Well, its a super robot battleship so I guess that kind of spectacular thing could happen. It makes sense to me. Probably makes as much sense as a bunch of other super robot stuff. Could be a special ship upgrade that makes your humanoid form match the size of the ship with a bigger upgrade cost since it gives more than one size increase. Or even make it so that the humanoid's size past medium counts as medium the same way a ship counts at start as huge-sized.
Or sort of the option to keep 'hem separate, Gurren-Lagann style. The battleship form splitting off the robot with a Real/Ship Captain multiclass-like system.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on August 23, 2014, 03:56:17 PM
I think it would be better if the resultant size stems from the class balance. Kind of weird from a mechanical perspective, but it means primary captains fit the 'transform the whole thing' ideal.

At least making Growth specify sizes per upgrade, now there's another way to make ships get bigger, would fix the ability to exploit the one level to obscene sizes.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on August 23, 2014, 03:58:14 PM
You do realize that being a super/captain multiclass means you end with the Cumbersome penalty (read:no immediate actions) in either form that makes adjacent enemies count you as flatfooted and also automatically confirm their crits, right?

So yes, pretty big robot for relatively cheap, but if enemies get close they're gonna hurt you a lot as they aim at your vulnerable points for critical damage.

Anyway added options for both multiclass super/captain and super size upgrades+transform that allow them to have different sizes because magic SUPER SCIENCE!

Also, edited in RD's transport version, thanks!

Quote
Nature's Oath: At 15th level 1/day, if you would die or your mecha be destroyed while in a location with natural vegetation, you can have trees and vines grow to repair your body and machine. You and your mecha recover all HP and remove all non-instantaneous ill effects from themselves, and can keep acting normally while you remain within 10 miles of the location that brought you back to life. If you go further away, or all the vegetation inside the radius is destroyed, you die.

This replaces the bonus feat a Super Pilot usually gains at 15th level.

I think something is missing to allow you to move more than 10 miles from this place, ever, without dying and making it questionably useful as a replacement feature (sure, I can keep fighting for the one battle... in the right environment, and if we have to move on I drop dead?)
Very well, added option of ending the oath.

Also rewording, because it currently kills you if you move too far away and your mecha was the one broken.
That's not a bug, it's a feature of being a tree-hugging elf. :p
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on August 23, 2014, 04:05:13 PM
I sure as hell would never want to use a class feature that loses me a level, and play time, in exchange for taking part in a fight I survived.

Also: a Super 19, Captain 1 can never use any Counters? I really hope Ships Full of Hope has none, too.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on August 23, 2014, 04:13:43 PM
I sure as hell would never want to use a class feature that loses me a level, and play time, in exchange for taking part in a fight I survived.
Hmm, right now 1 minute worth of emo speech will remove the oath, it's not that much time and definitely not a level. :tongue

Also: a Super 19, Captain 1 can never use any Counters? I really hope Ships Full of Hope has none, too.
You can as long as your enemy isn't adjacent (that's what makes cumbersome turn the ship flatfooted). Like, using ranged weapons from afar. Gives a reason for flying in close for point-blank blasts.  Also "This Battle Isn't over Yet" is a counter that can be used only  when an ally gets hurt.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Michael Lightning on August 23, 2014, 09:10:17 PM
So, you have rules for heavy melee weapons, but I haven't seen any weapons with that tag. Am I missing something?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Clanjos on August 24, 2014, 12:41:42 PM
Regarding the arcane pilot: do familiars selected in place of Arcane Feat get their own pod?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on August 25, 2014, 10:00:37 AM
Yes.

So, you have rules for heavy melee weapons, but I haven't seen any weapons with that tag. Am I missing something?

No. Just planning for the future.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Michael Lightning on August 25, 2014, 06:56:31 PM
So, a question about the Iron Charge stance in Into the Danger Zone: How long does the AC/Save bonus last? Until the start of next turn? Best bonus until stance is removed? I'm curious.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on August 25, 2014, 07:59:11 PM
So, a question about the Iron Charge stance in Into the Danger Zone: How long does the AC/Save bonus last? Until the start of next turn? Best bonus until stance is removed? I'm curious.

Currently in game, I've been using it under the assumption that the bonuses reset at the beginning of your turn. Thus you have to keep moving to keep dodging. You can't dodge if you don't move :p

Made sense like that to me.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Michael Lightning on August 25, 2014, 08:02:36 PM
That's what I'd assume, but it might be something that would want to be cleared up. RAW and RAI can be 2 VERY different things.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on August 25, 2014, 08:20:24 PM
I would imagine most homebrew is intended to be RAI? No?

Unrelated but
@OSLECAMO

So Moon Vanguard gets Nanoarmor that can emulate a Real or Super Robot.
What happens if a Moon Vanguard multiclasses into Ship Captain?
Does my Super Robot Nanoarmor get to become a Super Battleship somehow?  :lmao
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on August 26, 2014, 04:01:42 PM
Quote
Primordial Pilot: The Einst Queen counts as a Pilot for meeting the prerequisites of feats, and her drones count as having the same Pilot level for any ability that cares about it. If she picks Funnel Control System,  instead of robots she unleashes a massive swarm of diminutive Einst drones from  her body, that follow the same game rules as funnels.

Sadly, Funnels demand spellcasting ability, so it's a rather unlikely option unless you just want one level of casting. Are they still supposed to still have that requirement, or was it an oversight?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on September 05, 2014, 05:55:15 PM
Clarified typo.
I would imagine most homebrew is intended to be RAI? No?

Unrelated but
@OSLECAMO

So Moon Vanguard gets Nanoarmor that can emulate a Real or Super Robot.
What happens if a Moon Vanguard multiclasses into Ship Captain?
Does my Super Robot Nanoarmor get to become a Super Battleship somehow?  :lmao
Moon Vanguard doesn't really interact with pilot classes. The nanoarmor is a separate entity from the mecha/ship, and it growing to that kind of size would kinda defeat the whole point of the class of skimpy power armor.

Quote
Primordial Pilot: The Einst Queen counts as a Pilot for meeting the prerequisites of feats, and her drones count as having the same Pilot level for any ability that cares about it. If she picks Funnel Control System,  instead of robots she unleashes a massive swarm of diminutive Einst drones from  her body, that follow the same game rules as funnels.

Sadly, Funnels demand spellcasting ability, so it's a rather unlikely option unless you just want one level of casting. Are they still supposed to still have that requirement, or was it an oversight?
Psionics is fine too. Grab that feat that grants one psionic power.

On the other hand, I guess I could add a spellcasting variant to the Einst Queen. How does bard progression instead of maneuvers or mutations sounds?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on September 05, 2014, 06:09:27 PM
I actually considered Hidden Talent and taking funnels until I realised that I couldn't grant it to my drones instead, because they aren't casters. :lmao

Bard Progression? But what spell list? Druid stuff? Bards?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on October 17, 2014, 04:03:16 PM
Few questions:

1- How does the Disarming weapon property works against Mechas? A mecha is expected to fight other mechas, so what's the point of disarming if their weapons are all built-in and undisarmable? Or does it make them unusable for a moment? I suppose Arsenal weapons could be disarmed but I don't think once disarmed you can just take them... unless perhaps one voluntarily keeps his arsenal points used lower to make some space for stolen arsenal weapons.

2-Engine Overload (Into the Danger Zone 1 Stance): Is it meant to be 1 extra energy per extra 5-ft. granted by this stance or indeed 1 extra point of energy per 5-ft. moved. Because that makes all your movement -before- you actually get to the extra movement granted by this stance require more energy.
Ie: You have a fly speed of 60 and move 65 mu with this stance. As written, it costs 26 energy to move 5-ft. further than you would had you only paid 12 energy for 60-mu.
If it was only extra energy for the extra movement, you'd pay 2energy per extra 5 mu, so 65-mu would cost 14, which makes more sense. This level 1 stance otherwise won't be used much since no mecha will have all that much energy to use it.

3-Battleships and Ammo: I don't see where it says we can refill ammunition. The Cartridge accessory in the arsenal points out you can get a new cartridge when you go to the place where you can change your arsenal but that doesn't cover ammo in general. Otherwise, a battleship has ammo limits, and can be change its own arsenal over time. If it picks cartridges, by visiting its own battleship, doesn't that mean the captain's battleship get infinite ammo? It would make more sense if it took some time, but definitely not the time it takes to change arsenal. Making ammo isn't that time consuming. Also, if it takes Veteran Mechanics, does it gain infinite ammo?

4-Relationship feat numbers: You'll be seeing more of those soon in-game, so I'd rather point out right away that I feel the numbers are a bit huge before I use them. Love gives a bonus to damage equal to HD up to x3. That is a -lot- of bonus damage just for being adjacent to your loved one when you attack, even for up to 3 feats.
Friendship and Rivalry might be alright. I think.

5- Battleship Cruising Speed: It takes a full-round action to initiate the process, and then movement begins on its next turn? Or is it supposed to take a full-round action like withdrawing or running, and include the movement?

6- Magic Zephyr Sword-Just kidding (Burning Justice 1 boost):
Quote
For every 3 pilot levels you have, you can summon a weapon of a Level higher, up to weapons lvl VII when you reach pilot level 18
Is it normal that there isn't a melee arsenal Lv5 weapon in the list? Otherwise there is nothing at that level to use the maneuver for.

7- Great Commander (Ships Full of Hope 3 Stance):
Quote
for every 3 Ship Captain levels
Being a maneuver, shouldn't it work out of pilot levels instead of levels in the class?
I mean, it already points out that "This doesn't do anything if you don't already have the leader feat." but it already doesn't do anything if you do don't have at least 3 levels in Ship Captain, which includes the Leader feat. It is very redundant. It would make sense if it worked out of pilot levels instead though, so perhaps that's what was intended.

8- Machinery Warrior Android: If it gets in One with the Machine mode with its mecha, is it supposed to heal from its own nanomachines plus those of its mecha? If so, at Self-Regenerating V they would pretty much heal all their HP at beginning of their every turn.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on October 17, 2014, 06:48:58 PM
I actually considered Hidden Talent and taking funnels until I realised that I couldn't grant it to my drones instead, because they aren't casters. :lmao

Bard Progression? But what spell list? Druid stuff? Bards?
Been thinking on that, and decided that the best would be making a custom list of spells like I did for the Arcane and Divine Pilots. Even if it takes more work on my part.

1- How does the Disarming weapon property works against Mechas? A mecha is expected to fight other mechas, so what's the point of disarming if their weapons are all built-in and undisarmable? Or does it make them unusable for a moment? I suppose Arsenal weapons could be disarmed but I don't think once disarmed you can just take them... unless perhaps one voluntarily keeps his arsenal points used lower to make some space for stolen arsenal weapons.
I guess I naver clarified that. Added something about that in the weapons section.

Quote
Mecha weapons can be disarmed, representing the weapon being ripped off its supports. Built-in weapons gain a +4 bonus against disarm attempts. A mecha who had a weapon disarmed can pick it up and perform improvised repairs to make it work again as a move action that provokes attacks of opportunity. Each weapon is specially adapted to each mecha, even generic arsenal ones, and thus it's impossible to pick up and use disarmed weapons from other mechas during combat.


2-Engine Overload (Into the Danger Zone 1 Stance): Is it meant to be 1 extra energy per extra 5-ft. granted by this stance or indeed 1 extra point of energy per 5-ft. moved. Because that makes all your movement -before- you actually get to the extra movement granted by this stance require more energy.
Ie: You have a fly speed of 60 and move 65 mu with this stance. As written, it costs 26 energy to move 5-ft. further than you would had you only paid 12 energy for 60-mu.
If it was only extra energy for the extra movement, you'd pay 2energy per extra 5 mu, so 65-mu would cost 14, which makes more sense. This level 1 stance otherwise won't be used much since no mecha will have all that much energy to use it.
The stance is called "Engine Overload", not "efficient energy use", so yeah the bigger energy cost. And yes it's meant for mechas that have the extra energy to burn.

3-Battleships and Ammo: I don't see where it says we can refill ammunition. The Cartridge accessory in the arsenal points out you can get a new cartridge when you go to the place where you can change your arsenal but that doesn't cover ammo in general. Otherwise, a battleship has ammo limits, and can be change its own arsenal over time. If it picks cartridges, by visiting its own battleship, doesn't that mean the captain's battleship get infinite ammo? It would make more sense if it took some time, but definitely not the time it takes to change arsenal. Making ammo isn't that time consuming. Also, if it takes Veteran Mechanics, does it gain infinite ammo?
-Added clauses about that in the arsenal section of the battleship.

4-Relationship feat numbers: You'll be seeing more of those soon in-game, so I'd rather point out right away that I feel the numbers are a bit huge before I use them. Love gives a bonus to damage equal to HD up to x3. That is a -lot- of bonus damage just for being adjacent to your loved one when you attack, even for up to 3 feats.
Friendship and Rivalry might be alright. I think.
Yeaaahh, I had already kinda noticed that (your first encounter? They were all lovers) :blush

Nerfed it to only work 1/round.

...I'm also now afraid that your character is in love with her special doll.

5- Battleship Cruising Speed: It takes a full-round action to initiate the process, and then movement begins on its next turn? Or is it supposed to take a full-round action like withdrawing or running, and include the movement?
The first fullround action doesn't include movement.

6- Magic Zephyr Sword-Just kidding (Burning Justice 1 boost):
Quote
For every 3 pilot levels you have, you can summon a weapon of a Level higher, up to weapons lvl VII when you reach pilot level 18
Is it normal that there isn't a melee arsenal Lv5 weapon in the list? Otherwise there is nothing at that level to use the maneuver for.
...Wait, it's melee only? It was supposed to be any weapon. Fixed. GETTER GATLING GUN!!!!!

7- Great Commander (Ships Full of Hope 3 Stance):
Quote
for every 3 Ship Captain levels
Being a maneuver, shouldn't it work out of pilot levels instead of levels in the class?
I mean, it already points out that "This doesn't do anything if you don't already have the leader feat." but it already doesn't do anything if you do don't have at least 3 levels in Ship Captain, which includes the Leader feat. It is very redundant. It would make sense if it worked out of pilot levels instead though, so perhaps that's what was intended.
Good point, changed to scaling to pilot level.

8- Machinery Warrior Android: If it gets in One with the Machine mode with its mecha, is it supposed to heal from its own nanomachines plus those of its mecha? If so, at Self-Regenerating V they would pretty much heal all their HP at beginning of their every turn.
Abilities with the same name don't stack unless noted otherwise. The nanomachines keyword is used for both, so it simply overlaps.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on October 19, 2014, 03:16:05 AM
Alrighty.

Quote
Yeaaahh, I had already kinda noticed that (your first encounter? They were all lovers)
Speaking of which. There seemed to be a lot of attacks involved. How many synchro attacks can there be per turn?
-ie1: Two pilots in a relationship attack same target on round 1, then both attack it again on round two. When pilot A attacks, synchro attack with pilot B. If pilot B attacks it as well, does it trigger another synchro with pilot A or only a single synchro that is triggered by either of them?
-ie 2: Pilot A and B are in a relationship and both used an area attack that hit a few targets on round 1. On round two, Pilot A uses another area attack that hits those they both got on round 1. Do they make a synchro attack against each one of those targets?
-ie 3: Pilot A, B and C all have relationships with eachother (say, Love between A and B, Devotion between A and C, and Rivalry between B and C). They each attack the same target on round 1. They all get adjacent to eachother and start to synchro attack. Do they all participate in a single (or more depending on the answer for ie1) synchro attack or is it triggered for each relationship (Love synchro, Devotion synchro, Rivalry synchro)?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on October 19, 2014, 06:12:24 AM
1-Pilot A and Pilot B can both trigger synchro attacks on the same round as long as they have enough ammo/energy remaining.
2-Sychro attacks can only be performed against a single target, but area effects and whatnot may allow you to hit others as collateral as part of that.
3-Only two partners may participate in a single synchro attack. They could chain together, in your example  B and A synchro, then A sychros with C, then C synchros with B.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Annforest on October 19, 2014, 06:26:50 AM
I see.
Just to be sure though; since in example 1 they both can trigger it, would example 3 result in:

1- All 3 pilots attack the same target on round 1. On round 2, A attacks the target and triggers a synchro with B or C, or is it triggering two separate synchro attacks, one with B followed by another with C? Since C (or B) attacked the target as part of the synchro, it triggers a synchro attack with B (or C) or again with A. And so on. Unless attacks from synchro attacks cannot trigger another synchro attack and must be triggered by a attack that uses the pilot's own actions, which leads to...
2-  All 3 pilots attack the same target on round 1. On round 2, A attacks the target and triggers a synchro with B. It then makes another attack and triggers another synchro with C. Then, B makes an attack of his own and triggers a synchro with A, then makes another attack and triggers a synchro with C. Finally, C makes two attacks of his own, triggering a synchro with A and then with B with the second attack.

Also... I like the soulmeld system. How does it work with your mecha system? From what I read, it doesn't seem like the big robots have an item slot they could use to channel the soulmelds.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on October 19, 2014, 09:25:59 PM
Quote
-ie 3: Pilot A, B and C all have relationships with eachother (say, Love between A and B, Devotion between A and C, and Rivalry between B and C). They each attack the same target on round 1. They all get adjacent to eachother and start to synchro attack. Do they all participate in a single (or more depending on the answer for ie1) synchro attack or is it triggered for each relationship (Love synchro, Devotion synchro, Rivalry synchro)

This example also sounds like a stunningly dysfunctional group of relationships.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on October 19, 2014, 09:49:38 PM
No its a love triangle.

A loves B. (Love feat)
A & C are childhood friends (Devotion feat)
B & C are rivals for A's love (Rivalry)

Always assuming A & C are opposite genders :D
Its a classical, stereotypical cliche~
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on October 19, 2014, 09:51:27 PM
No its a love triangle.

A loves B. (Love feat)
A & C are childhood friends (Devotion feat)
B & C are rivals for A's love (Rivalry)

Always assuming A & C are opposite genders :D
Its a classical, stereotypical cliche~

Why does the gender of participants matter? :P
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on October 19, 2014, 10:01:13 PM
Quote
This example also sounds like a stunningly dysfunctional group of relationships.
Quote
No its a love triangle.
That was kind of intended. :P
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on October 19, 2014, 10:03:23 PM
No its a love triangle.

A loves B. (Love feat)
A & C are childhood friends (Devotion feat)
B & C are rivals for A's love (Rivalry)

Always assuming A & C are opposite genders :D
Its a classical, stereotypical cliche~

Why does the gender of participants matter? :P

Because otherwise it's not a cliche. Otherwise, it's a studio trying to be edgy and different and pretending to do something unique when it's actually not but advertising it as if it was  :eh
Basically, what I said is a cliche, and when it doesn't matter, it's a marketing ploy  :P
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on October 20, 2014, 05:24:22 AM
1- All 3 pilots attack the same target on round 1. On round 2, A attacks the target and triggers a synchro with B or C, or is it triggering two separate synchro attacks, one with B followed by another with C? Since C (or B) attacked the target as part of the synchro, it triggers a synchro attack with B (or C) or again with A. And so on. Unless attacks from synchro attacks cannot trigger another synchro attack and must be triggered by a attack that uses the pilot's own actions, which leads to...
Yes, of course they can't trigger new attacks, otherwise you would get an infinite loop with just two pilots (A starts, B synchros, then A synchros, and so on). Clarified it.

2-  All 3 pilots attack the same target on round 1. On round 2, A attacks the target and triggers a synchro with B. It then makes another attack and triggers another synchro with C. Then, B makes an attack of his own and triggers a synchro with A, then makes another attack and triggers a synchro with C. Finally, C makes two attacks of his own, triggering a synchro with A and then with B with the second attack.
If A/B/C can make two separate attacks on their own per turn, yes, they can trigger two synchros. Remember that the action used for the attack is the same granted to the synchronized pilots.

Also... I like the soulmeld system. How does it work with your mecha system? From what I read, it doesn't seem like the big robots have an item slot they could use to channel the soulmelds.
Pilot soulmelds, benefits are granted to the mecha.

No its a love triangle.

A loves B. (Love feat)
A & C are childhood friends (Devotion feat)
B & C are rivals for A's love (Rivalry)

Always assuming A & C are opposite genders :D
Its a classical, stereotypical cliche~

Why does the gender of participants matter? :P

Because otherwise it's not a cliche. Otherwise, it's a studio trying to be edgy and different and pretending to do something unique when it's actually not but advertising it as if it was  :eh
Basically, what I said is a cliche, and when it doesn't matter, it's a marketing ploy  :P
CCS disagrees with you. :p
...
Oh, wait, you were talking about mecha series.
...
(click to show/hide)
Totally happened on the official series.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on November 19, 2014, 05:37:39 AM
I'm considering making or helping out with the creation of a Mecha Engineer class.

Its design would be centered like the Einst Queen on two 'modes'; Engineer with maneuvers and engineer with class abilities.

The premise is that I've seen many instances where the pilot of a mecha actually is a good for nothing that can't really do much when it isn't piloting the mecha, and that is mostly because the mecha is doing all the work.
Explanation: The pilot sucks, but whoever made the mecha is a damn genius.

The mecha engineer would have low BaB progression, high Will save, 4+int skill points and skill ranks mostly in craft and knowledge skills. I would have it get 8+int skill points but instead I'll have it gain 4 skill points that are only possessed by mecha itself and solely in Str or Dex-based skills and perhaps perception skills. I would also have it get a high BaB progression but only the mecha itself is considered to have it. The mecha would also work has if it had a high Reflex save progression. So out of the mecha the engineer would be pretty wimpy.

What I am aiming for, however, is for the engineer and the mecha to be completely separate stat wise.
The mecha does not benefit from any self buffing class abilities, from the engineer's feats, skill points (beside the 4/level mentioned) or whatever. The engineer designs it to have its own stats, set of feats and so on and if the engineer pilots it, the mecha doesn't benefit from the engineer's stats in any way.
...Which is why the engineer usually doesn't pilot the mecha and supports the party instead (kind of like a sentient super robot, but without copycat stats). The one piloting his machine would usually be some random angsty kid with emotional problems (level 1 commoner or any other ally willing to pilot it) that was "chosen" to pilot it for a reason or another. Odds are the first crit takes out the kid, though. No matter. There are plenty of kids out there dying to be "chosen" by fate or whatever. It could have a similar Eisnt Queen system in which the engineer can build a few mechas (if it has the time and resources to do it) that are piloted by more stupid kids.
Going that way would give the Eisnt Queen a non-alien-apocalypse counterpart, I suppose, but I'm not sure about threading that route.

If the engineer gets a cohort, it could replace the wimpy kid or represent the kid growing a spine and actually becoming a competent pilot, in which case the mecha would use the cohort's stats instead of its own as usual while it pilots it. Or not and just make the pilot less vulnerable to being whipped out and maybe give it the possibility of using spirits.

Maneuver-based engineer would program some maneuvers that the mecha would know (not the engineer, though) and the engineer with class abilities would get special features for himself or for the mecha in the form of Breakthroughs (it would have its own).
The mecha would work like a real, super or multiclass robot, which would make multiclassing into Mecha Engineer rather simple for the purpose of determining what the mecha has access to.

It wouldn't get spirits and rely on progress points. It'd get about 7 feats throughout the 20 levels and the capstone that would maybe allow it once per hour to have a little more energy regen than usual for 1 minute. Like +1/10.


Only if you're cool with it though.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on November 19, 2014, 07:33:18 AM
On other news, expanded the real robots list (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=7161.msg178254#msg178254) a bit. Also reduced the arsenal cost of many weapons, and an option of picking pairs of lower-level weapons for reduced cost while granting them the twin-linked property.

Only if you're cool with it though.
That depends widely on how good that independent mecha is when compared with the mechas given by the other classes when being piloted. And what the engineer can exactly do. And how much of a force multiplier the mecha engineer is for a group.

Because honestly right now the custom mecha alone seems to be plain superior. Basically works by itself, but gets its own customized maneuvers and feats and skills and then unique upgrades on top of that. And then the engineer seems like he'll have stuff of his own to do during combat. If you're gonna get two characters for the price of one, they need to be weaker, and if then they're also a lot more versatile, then that's still trouble.

Also if you're gonnna go with the borked "My enemy has a mecha? I don't care, I can directly attack the pilot inside. Oh, wait, I do care that my enemy has a mecha because I get to turn it into extra bonus for myself, while they still don't get any benefit from it against my attacks, they're all complete suckers for even trying to use a mecha against me.", then just forget it.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on November 19, 2014, 08:11:57 AM
Quote
Because honestly right now the custom mecha alone seems to be plain superior. Basically works by itself, but gets its own customized maneuvers and feats and skills and then unique upgrades on top of that. And then the engineer seems like he'll have stuff of his own to do during combat. If you're gonna get two characters for the price of one, they need to be weaker, and if then they're also a lot more versatile, then that's still trouble.
It shouldn't be that impressive. As far as two characters for the price of one goes, I aim for something between Einst drone and how good a Super Pilot's Sentient Imprinted mecha could be.
The super pilot's mecha is pretty similar, it "works by itself, but gets its own customized maneuvers and feats and skills and then unique upgrades on top of that". The difference is that unlike the super robot, the engineer doesn't have the maneuvers (unless it pilots the robot) and the stats of the robot are independent of the engineer's.
...Which technically should make it harder to abuse since the robot doesn't benefit from the PC's very high stats, self-buffing class abilities and so on. Kind of like a einst drone that is controlled and not piloted.
If the pilot forsake maneuvers, it gets other stuff that would be an equivalent.

The only thing I'm wondering is if the stuff it would get for not taking maneuvers should be available to a would-be pilot other than the engineer that wants to pilot it, since when someone pilots someone else's robot they have access to that robot's maneuvers on top of their own for some reason.

Quote
That depends widely on how good that independent mecha is when compared with the mechas given by the other classes when being piloted. And what the engineer can exactly do. And how much of a force multiplier the mecha engineer is for a group.
The engineer gets class abilities if it doesn't get maneuvers. Unless it pilots the mecha himself or buy magic gear for the kids, the mecha won't benefit much from equipment other than arsenal.
I guess power players will want to pilot their own mecha, which makes sense since there are instances of pilots being great engineers, or have some cohort or a fellow PC do it.
What the engineer does would be limited by its equipment, skills, feats and whatever it gets for multiclassing in something else if he goes the maneuvers path. If it takes class abilities instead, it should be about on par with what having divine spellcasting in mu-scale should offer to a group.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on November 19, 2014, 08:22:52 AM
If it takes class abilities instead, it should be about on par with what having divine spellcasting in mu-scale should offer to a group.

Danger Will Robinson!

A Divine Pilot only gets an heavily nerfed real robot for their troubles, while the engineer you speak of would get something close to a sentient super robot. That would definitely be crossing the power line.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on November 19, 2014, 08:35:36 AM
Yes, but the divine pilot gets Spirits on top of divine casting. The engineer would have its engineering and class abilities be about the equivalent of the divine casting by itself.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on November 19, 2014, 08:41:51 AM
Spirits are not equal to the gap between a good robot and a bad one.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on November 19, 2014, 09:13:21 AM
Not to mention, while the Divine Pilot needs to be inside her mecha to get her spells going mecha-scale and has bad skills, the engineer's mecha gets to go around with good combat stats, combat feats, better skills than the divine pilot, and maneuvers, which will probably be superior to spirits. While the engineer themselves are still throwing their spellcasting-equivalent support at the same time their custom mecha is beating the crap out of stuff.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on November 19, 2014, 09:19:37 AM
Quote
Spirits are not equal to the gap between a good robot and a bad one.
The mecha is already suffering from not benefiting from self buff class abilities and copying your stats. That in itself is already a big nerf.

Quote
...good combat stats, combat feats, better skills than the divine pilot, and maneuvers, which will probably be superior to spirits.
No. As I said, they get either the class abilities or the maneuvers. Not both.
The robot doesn't get both.

Either way, it should be fine. If it feels too strong it'll be adjusted. The maneuverless mecha + engineering support should be no greater than an infiltrator einst queen with drones under queen's will.

By the way, do you have a suggestion for the character to portray it? You're more familiar to those series than I am.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on November 19, 2014, 10:24:30 AM
Quote
Spirits are not equal to the gap between a good robot and a bad one.
The mecha is already suffering from not benefiting from self buff class abilities and copying your stats. That in itself is already a big nerf.
No, it isn't, since it just means the engineer can dump their physical stats and their mecha still rocks at physical combat.

Independent stats just means you can specialize each of your two-for-one characters for one thing.

Quote
...good combat stats, combat feats, better skills than the divine pilot, and maneuvers, which will probably be superior to spirits.
No. As I said, they get either the class abilities or the maneuvers. Not both.
The robot doesn't get both.
The robot still gets independent actions and their own feats, which can all be specialized for combat.

Either way, it should be fine. If it feels too strong it'll be adjusted. The maneuverless mecha + engineering support should be no greater than an infiltrator einst queen with drones under queen's will.
Thing is, the einst queen can't benefit other party members, so she's just a force multiplier for her own minions. That's a lot easier to balance.

Which is the only way I could see your idea working without being a nightmare to balance. The engineer customizes his own weaker mechas, and gets suckers to pilot them, or cheap AIs, or whatever, but he can't modify other player's mechas, only his creations, and the other players have no reason to want to pilot the engineer's creations because they're weaker than their own machines.


By the way, do you have a suggestion for the character to portray it? You're more familiar to those series than I am.
Funny that you mention that. Closest things I can remember are...

 Tasuku.
(http://i.imgur.com/rAUbrl0.jpg)
He wanted to be a pilot, but in the physical tests proved both a weakling and clumsy, so they put him on grunt mechanic duty instead. Then in a battle he took a mecha that nobody was using and saved the day.


And  Ryoto
(http://i.imgur.com/BexIFQR.png)
While Tasuku had a fighting spirit but sucked physically, Ryoto  was quite capable but just not much into the whole killing thingy, so he ended up becoming the in-field engineer that now and then pilots a mecha when things get desesperate enough.


Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on November 19, 2014, 10:43:38 AM
Quote
No, it isn't, since it just means the engineer can dump their physical stats and their mecha still rocks at physical combat.
Only if there isn't an actual competent pilot piloting it.
Which means that if a commoner is doing the piloting, a single critical hit will make the mecha pilotless.
If the engineer is piloting it, then its non-combat stuff won't be of much use since either they overrule the mecha's combat ability or it doesn't benefit from other class abilities. Which is a very significant minus considering you intend those mecha classes to mostly be used in gestalt.
If someone else pilots it, then whatever combat feats and skills are built into the mecha become meaningless as well.

Thanks for the suggestions!

I don't mind going for self-only boostage (even though some maneuvers in many disciplines can provide benefits to allies, or more like Ships Full of Hope), but it would seem awkward thematically.
The way I had planned for it to work is that the engineer would have to be within the mecha it works on without piloting it. Which makes it impossible for multi-mecha boosts. Only one at a time and to even begin work on someone else's machine he has to spend actions reaching it, getting inside and leaving it when he's done to attend to another.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on November 22, 2014, 03:35:25 AM
I see that your new class is actually a repaint job of your previously crazily OP class. Heck, you didn't even bother to properly replace the names in several instances! Arguably even more OP now because it now also gets cheap spammable minions. And the prototype gets extra HP and energy over a regular real robot before anything else. That you kept claiming "Trust me, totally balanced by the mecha engineer having bad Bab", and then the self-controling OP mecha gets full Bab anyway, well, that's the cherry on top.

I had a glimmer of hope for this. It was completely crushed. Not gonna bother visit that thread again for a year.

Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on November 22, 2014, 04:23:38 AM
Cheap spammable minions? :twitch It was intended to be nothing better than uncontrolled einst drones.

I did some maths and I don't see how it could get a clearly better HP/Energy than a normal real robot.

The low bab was never meant to balance it. It applies only when it isn't piloting the mecha to avoid multiple super warriors at a time, like the Einst Queen. The self(kid) controlled mecha is about as good as a the controlled einst drones and about as vulnerable to crits.

I think it is much weaker than you think and you're exagerating. If I made mistakes in my calculations I'm sure it can be quickly fixed.

You had invited me to make a Engineering system here and so I did. Obviously I took the revamped version I made for the other one and adjusted it since you wanted to have something that could be available to the other classes.

Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on November 22, 2014, 10:15:42 PM
I reviewed it again just to makes sure and I am pretty confident it is weaker in power than the Einst Queen and the Super Pilot. If anything those two classes should maybe be nerfed.

Its HP potential is weaker than a super pilot and, since unlike the other classes it doesn't get by default an ability that has the potential to fully heal the mecha (or all einst drones) every 2-3 rounds with a free action, it might in fact be proper to give it a higher max hp potential.

The ability to make a bunch of suits isn't that impressive since it is time consuming, can properly be done only at specific places unlike a einst queen and a similar result could be done better and more cheaply by just hiring mercenaries since they would actually follow orders and come with their own mecha.

And its kid-piloted mecha prototype isn't OP. I don't see how it could be better than 3+ controlled einst drones or a super pilot.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on November 22, 2014, 10:21:39 PM
From the above post I can only conclude you actually want Guts nerfed, not Super Pilot.

Or, from earlier stuff, Sentient rather than a blanket nerf. <_<
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on November 22, 2014, 11:17:25 PM
Not really the point. I'm only adding that things like free heals, such as uber regeneration, guts and trust, is (maybe) calculated in determining what HP is enough for a mecha. The engineer doesn't have free heals per round so even if the mecha's hp was a bit higher than the norm (and it really isn't), it might actually be alright.

I'm talking about the Queen Eisnt and Super Pilot package as a whole. But nerfing them and how that should be handled isn't the subject. Just feel that saying that the Mecha Engineer is crazy OP is really disturbing compared to whats offered over there. It can do some nice stuff, sure, but when it comes to raw power a Spirit user will be on top.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on December 18, 2014, 05:53:59 AM
Perhaps I've should've clarified something. In SRW everybody that matters get spirits. Supers, reals, your mom, alien monstruosities from outer space, ancien awaken gods, if they have an unique name, they have spirits. Only nameless faceless mooks meant to die in droves don't get spirits. Making a class other than "mecha cannon fodder" without spirits, and using that as an excuse to fit in other dubious stuff while claiming "It's balanced because it doesn't have spirits!", is not a valid character class option for here as far as I'm concerned. You balance spirits by giving spirits in some form to everybody.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on December 18, 2014, 06:17:07 PM
Ah, that's good to know!

Quote
"It's balanced because it doesn't have spirits!"
The class is balanced by much more than the lack of spirits. That detail only makes it a lot less easy to abuse.

But okay, that's even better. I can instead convert this engineering system into a Spirit based one by switching the acquisition of Integrated Technology with a Spirit feature, make feats that allow you to spend spirits to get the engineering options and make spirits with the [Mecha Engineer] tag. It'll make it easier for other pilots to dabble in engineering. Sounds good.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on December 19, 2014, 05:51:31 PM
Just for the love of Judecca don't make it tied to yet another custom resource...
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on December 19, 2014, 06:45:09 PM
Like the Super Pilot's upgrades or the einst queen's nutrients? Didn't plan to.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on December 19, 2014, 07:02:15 PM
Yours tend to get overcomplicated.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on December 22, 2014, 06:53:10 PM
There's a few Spirits I think could perhaps get implemented.
Not sure if Morale should be a thing since you already replaced it for static values for a few feats so I think I'll just translate it for now as a bonus to attack, damage, DR and move speed.
I'm using an average of their costs in one of the games though it often feels too high for what it grants. They could be something along the lines of:

Surveillance (1) : You scout an target that you haven't attacked or been attacked by for the past minute. You learn its statistics.

Charge (30) : One ally in sight gains a +2 bonus to attack rolls, damage rolls, DR and a +5-mu bonus to its speeds.

Resupply (48 or 50) : You, along with one ally in sight, recover all your energy and all your weapon ammo.

Vigor (50) : One ally in sight gains a +6 bonus to attack rolls, damage rolls, DR and a +30-mu bonus to its speeds.

Rally (65) : All adjacent units get a +2 bonus to attack rolls, damage rolls, DR and a +5-mu bonus to their speeds.

Hope (70) : You and one ally that you can see recover 50 spirit points.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on December 22, 2014, 07:19:04 PM
Surveillance Scan is one of those effects that's really weak in SRW, but would be pure gold in a D&D game. The main reason being that in SRW you automatically learn all of the enemy statistics after a single round of combat against them. However in D&D that kind of effect demands multiple Knowledge checks and learning the exact statistics is pretty much impossible by default.

Charge seems good, although I can't remember it from any particular SRW game.

Ressupply would be probably be strong enough if it affected a single target, even if it costs 50 SP. Judecca knows how much I love it late game to keep the high-energy ultimate attacks going. And from what I've seen so far in our campaign, energy is indeed the main limiter of many powerful abilities, so ways to easily recharge them like that should be limited.

Vigor is over 3x as good as charge for less than double the cost? Why would anyone take charge then? Oh, wait, I think I recognize them now, they're the morale-boosting spirits. Kinda plain implementation from your side, but I guess they fill a niche that was empty. Needs more Excellen either way.

Taunt (40): Target enemy in sight takes a -2 penalty to attack rolls, damage rolls, DR and a -5 mu penalty to speed.


Hope plains allows for a loophole if two players take it. One guy spends 70 sp, recovers 50 and another guy recovers 50. Net loss 20 SP for yourself, but then the other guy uses this too, and you gain 30 SP while the other guy still has 20 leftover from where he began as well.

Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on December 22, 2014, 08:06:29 PM
I found them in Super Robot Wars Original Generation. Maybe I should scout other games for other potential spirits.

For Surveillance/Scan, that makes a lot of sense and explains well its low SP cost. It doesn't translate into Dnd at all since you can get knowledge results off seeing enemies without having to fight them anyway.

For Resupply, I'd compare with hit points. Regeneration of hp vs reactors for energy are at equal strength, though reactor is more available. Guts is 30 SP and Faith is 40 SP. Also, you don't die from having zero energy but you do if your hp drops to zero so hp so the value of energy vs hp feels difficult to assess.
I agree that it is a good limiter for powerful abilities but usually the greatest limiter of power is action-economy.
Zeal is 70 SP for a lot of extra power, so how much would an energy equivalent of Guts/Faith be?

Charge/Vigor Morale spirits: Yep. As I mentioned you already replaced Morale for some feats so I'm not sure about bringing a Morale system over this without the feats having to be done over.

Good one for Taunt/Exhaust!

I was also considering adding Mercy (10), which leaves an enemy close to death when it should die. For Dnd though perhaps it would translate better to dealing nonlethal damage or otherwise leaving a mecha disabled but not destroyed.

Also considering:
Direct Attack (30) : Your next attack, if it hits, passes through
whatever defenses the opponent has, including Support Defenses and
any sort of barrier. It hits the enemy directly.

As for Hope, that's exactly what it did in the game. Was that spirit regeneration loop a thing or was it just not worth it considering who had access to it?
I though I'd just reduce the cost to 20 since you the net loss was 20 but I figured that the mechanics requiring 70 SP to even do it was meant to force you to keep a high spirit count to be able to do it along with preventing you to do it too early. Otherwise putting a cooldown of 5 minutes (time it usually takes to recover spirits anyway) or less per use per target would prevent the loop. That or diminishing returns each use.
After hearing two great speeches about friendship and believing in yourself or whatever within the same episode/fight your spirits aren't as lifted after all.

Otherwise I'm also thinking that perhaps more spirits should progress by pilot level, like Trust and Refresh. Especially those giving static bonuses.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on December 22, 2014, 08:48:28 PM
For Resupply, I'd compare with hit points. Regeneration of hp vs reactors for energy are at equal strength, though reactor is more available. Guts is 30 SP and Faith is 40 SP. Also, you don't die from having zero energy but you do if your hp drops to zero so hp so the value of energy vs hp feels difficult to assess.
I agree that it is a good limiter for powerful abilities but usually the greatest limiter of power is action-economy.
Zeal is 70 SP for a lot of extra power, so how much would an energy equivalent of Guts/Faith be?
Thing is that you want your energy-recovering spirit to restore two mechas's supply. That's not how it worked on the game, not how the other spirits here work, and just restoring energy would be good.

Also trivia, I had considered making it myself when making the first spirit list, but then decided it would be a bit silly somehow willing somebody else's weapon to have more bullets, but after watching knights of Sidonia I guess I can go with "improvise something else as ammo".

Charge/Vigor Morale spirits: Yep. As I mentioned you already replaced Morale for some feats so I'm not sure about bringing a Morale system over this without the feats having to be done over.
Yeah, between mechas and spirits I believed there were already more than enough subsystems for this.

Good one for Taunt/Exhaust!
There's a reason why I have this avatar, you know? :p

I was also considering adding Mercy (10), which leaves an enemy close to death when it should die. For Dnd though perhaps it would translate better to dealing nonlethal damage or otherwise leaving a mecha disabled but not destroyed.
Fine,  go ahead and make your defeat without destruction spirit.

More trivia, Mercy in the SRW games is more of a situational ability since there's at least always one mission where you need to reduce your target's HP to critical without killing them (usually because they have nukes, or are nukes, and killing them would mean everybody died).

Also considering:
Direct Attack (30) : Your next attack, if it hits, passes through
whatever defenses the opponent has, including Support Defenses and
any sort of barrier. It hits the enemy directly.
Would probably work better if you specified more, like "ignores defensive abilities with Barrier/Shield/Whatever on its name."

As for Hope, that's exactly what it did in the game. Was that spirit regeneration loop a thing or was it just not worth it considering who had access to it?
O'rrly?  Lefina has something to say about that. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=88AlHuMhS0A#t=623) Hope only recovered one ally's worth of SP. There's no two-target spirits in any SWR as far as I'm aware.

There was a possible loophole with another character that had Hope for just  50 SP, so if you got her the spirit-reduction "feat", she would become an infinite spirit battery. However you only unlocked said character very late in the game, thus you would need to grind multiple Newgame+ to get it done.

Otherwise I'm also thinking that perhaps more spirits should progress by pilot level, like Trust and Refresh. Especially those giving static bonuses.
Trust and Refresh are special because healing effects are rare. However pilots are getting boosts to movement and hit/AC and damage from plenty of other sources, so the spirits that boost those don't need it if you ask me.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on December 22, 2014, 09:10:10 PM
Quote
Thing is that you want your energy-recovering spirit to restore two mechas's supply. That's not how it worked on the game, not how the other spirits here work, and just restoring energy would be good.
From the Spirit list I read on that game, it works exactly as I listed it.
Looking at other lists, it seems to work for only one ally instead in most of the games. For how it works, I imagine its about the same way their spirit repairs that big hole through a mecha's chest.

Quote
Yeah, between mechas and spirits I believed there were already more than enough subsystems for this.
Ha ha. Oh yes. Well agreed! Though... you know me; It is never too complicated to be playable. Dnd already has hundreds of subsystems without even counting homebrews so as far as I'm concerned its a big whatever.

Quote
More trivia, Mercy in the SRW games is more of a situational ability since there's at least always one mission where you need to reduce your target's HP to critical without killing them (usually because they have nukes, or are nukes, and killing them would mean everybody died).
Ah, neat. I read it as more of a training spirit. Put an enemy to its knees so that weak ally of yours can be the one to finish it off and catch up with the big boys. In this campaign setting, this could actually be used to help promote mecha mooks.

Quote
Would probably work better if you specified more, like "ignores defensive abilities with Barrier/Shield/Whatever on its name."
Wouldn't that be too much too specify? Anything that reduces the damage received (DR, Defend, G-Wall and so on) being ignored seems clear enough. Unless that spirit was meant to only ignore actual barriers but not other sources such as the spirit that reduces damage.

Quote
O'rrly?  Lefina has something to say about that. Hope only recovered one ally's worth of SP. There's no two-target spirits in any SWR as far as I'm aware.
No problem then! As I said, I picked those from Super Robot Taisen: Original Generation. Your video is from the second one.
But hey, I'm cool with it.


Otherwise, I'd rather not make them myself since there is already a thread for Spirits. If you're okay with some of these propositions feel free to add them in and give them whichever pilot class you think would work best for them. They're just suggestions after all.


Edit: Oh. Found many lists and there are so many. There's even Twin spirits (though in some games some of those seem to be usable alone).
(click to show/hide)
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Michael Lightning on December 25, 2014, 07:58:34 AM
With the twin spirits, those come in on the PS2 rerelease of the OG games as OGs or Original Generations and 2nd OGs on the PS3. The thing about them was that each pilot had 1 'twin' spirit that was only available to be used while they were in a twin unit with one another. All of them only worked while they were in a twin unit together, so using the spirit then separating the twining out doesn't work that way. I don't think that we need a subsystem like the Twin system in this when there's other things that can probably be put in first, especially since there's MP mechs and other abilities that are much more interesting from the Japan-only crossover games.

-edit- oh, and Assault is very rarely (if ever) a Twin command. It tends to be on some mid-speed mechs whose more powerful attacks aren't post-movement (looking at you, Kyosuke!)
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on December 25, 2014, 05:51:45 PM
Yeah, the original OG 1 didn't have twin system either, the fancy PS remake was the one who added them along a bunch of quircky mechanics (and then was never released in english for the evulz).

Will see to adding more spirits over Christmas vacations, but twin whatever will remain in the backburner.

Also Assault already was one of the first spirits I converted here... Fighting Spirit is already there as Warrior Spirit, and Confusion as Disturbance. You can blame those last two in different translations.

EDIT: I had the idea of making the morale-boosting spirits providing better bonus if you have the morale feats.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on August 07, 2015, 06:54:36 AM
I just noticed that the Super Robot upgrades "Growth" and "Miniaturization" could be stacked together to gain all the bonuses of being super big but remaining normal or smaller sized. The net gain being your weapons keep their increased damage die due to size increases (as Mini says it doesn't reduce the die size for weapons), you take no size penalty to hit (or gain a bonus if go below medium), and you keep the Nat AC bonus from getting bigger while being smaller.

And neither one says you can't take the other if you already have one of the two.


How intended or not is this?
I could totally use this loophole right now  :lmao
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on August 07, 2015, 12:13:44 PM
Hmm, that's a bit too silly even for here if you ask me. Made the upgrades mutually exclusive.

Nerfed Hyperdimensional Storage so that it costs extra points each extra time you pick it, otherwise it's kinda of an auto-pick.

Also I was thinking of buffing Born to Fight so that it allows you to "overcharge" arsenal options so that they grant a bigger bonus for 1 round and are then lost, in a case by case basis So for example overcharging a Booster would grant a +100 mu bonus to speed for 1 round, but then you lose the booster until you can change arsenal options again. How does it sound?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on August 07, 2015, 08:33:52 PM
Could it simply reduce the overcharged arsenal's bonus to 0 temporarily instead?
I don't think I would ever use the option if it effectively removed the Arsenal item after one use for at least the rest of an ingame day.

Edit: Altho losing the booster just for the rest of the current encounter (or a set amount of time outside of combat if not in an encounter) after the single use I could get behind. And then being able continue to overcharge it further to continue the Boosting like I described just below until you break it.

I do however like this suddenly needlessly complicated idea about being able to Overcharge the same arsenal item for consecutive rounds, with each round after the 1st having an increasing percent chance of burning out the Arsenal item untiil you have a chance to change arsenal options (repairing/replacing the burnt out Arsenal option).

Also, sorta on the side and unrelated a bit, but Born to Fight's "Able to use maneuvers usually only accessible while piloting a mecha when outside the mecha 1/5 minutes" bit. Moon Vanguard counts as a Pilot class, and Nano Armor counts as a Mecha, so I could use not just the Pilot martial school maneuvers but also any martial school maneuvers (that aren't from Ace Pilot, Into the Danger Zone, or that 3rd SRW martial school) tied to the Moon Vanguard class 1/5mins as well couldn't I?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on August 12, 2015, 05:02:16 PM
Could it simply reduce the overcharged arsenal's bonus to 0 temporarily instead?
I don't think I would ever use the option if it effectively removed the Arsenal item after one use for at least the rest of an ingame day.

Edit: Altho losing the booster just for the rest of the current encounter (or a set amount of time outside of combat if not in an encounter) after the single use I could get behind. And then being able continue to overcharge it further to continue the Boosting like I described just below until you break it.

I do however like this suddenly needlessly complicated idea about being able to Overcharge the same arsenal item for consecutive rounds, with each round after the 1st having an increasing percent chance of burning out the Arsenal item untiil you have a chance to change arsenal options (repairing/replacing the burnt out Arsenal option).
Made it so that the acessory becomes nonfuctional for 10 rounds. Random chance to break doesn't sound like that much of a good idea to me.

Also, sorta on the side and unrelated a bit, but Born to Fight's "Able to use maneuvers usually only accessible while piloting a mecha when outside the mecha 1/5 minutes" bit. Moon Vanguard counts as a Pilot class, and Nano Armor counts as a Mecha, so I could use not just the Pilot martial school maneuvers but also any martial school maneuvers (that aren't from Ace Pilot, Into the Danger Zone, or that 3rd SRW martial school) tied to the Moon Vanguard class 1/5mins as well couldn't I?

Correct.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on January 26, 2016, 10:29:54 AM
Big number overhaul across all classes to make the attack bonus and AC values match better as they could get messy pretty easily.

Also tweaked several super robot upgrades and arsenal options.

(click to show/hide)

Things to do:
-Tools category for the arsenal, aka 1-use items, cartridge will be moved there.
-IE and bun gun maniac tactical feats.
-Newtype/Coordinator class, aka specialized in bonding and communication with other pilots.
-Random kid pilot class. Less maneuvers, more spirit.
-More PSO2-based schools.

Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on February 18, 2016, 08:09:59 AM
IE tactical feat added, along index on the feat thread.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on July 17, 2016, 09:25:57 AM
Minor update, nerfed Valor/Soul a bit so that they cannot score criticals and do not stack with other damage multipliers.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Rekmond on September 12, 2016, 06:00:13 AM
Hey Os was looking over some of this stuff to use in another campaign (currently trying to design a gestalt Moon Vanguard/God...quite fun) and found a few things that could use some clarification.

1:   Super Robot Upgrades
     I assume upgrades without a cost listed are 1 point apiece, but it doesn't say as such anywhere.

2: Another from the Super Robots

         Extra:The super robot gains one extra in-built basic weapon. Cannot be taken more than once per 4 HD.

    What does a basic weapon consist of in relation to this?

3: Reactor 1 and Generator 1 mecha properties
    If you receive these properties from multiple locations. Say Solar Panel (1) Arsenal and Mysterious Power super robot upgrade, do they stack or do you take the highest offered value?

Might have more later but that's it for now.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on September 13, 2016, 08:34:45 AM
1. Yes, clarified.

2. It's the same as the default in-built weapon (1d6 melee no extras).

3. Take highest value, that's why they have keywords.

Also great to hear there's DMs out there that will allow stuff like gestalt Moon Vanguard/God! :D
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Rekmond on September 13, 2016, 12:14:35 PM
Nice to know that most of my assumptions were correct then, didn't want to revisit my upgrades again so soon.

I will admit though to some desire to use this material at the local comic shop.  Fate Core just isn't a good system for mech games since you simply stack the same thing over and over. Mekton Zeta was fun way back, but outdated and needed some serious work on designing pilots.


As an aside, are there any plans for Zoids? I know they were in very few of the SRW games (same with Voltron) but well......Zoids.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on September 13, 2016, 08:03:49 PM
Holy fck Zoids is my JAM!!

SRW and Gundam, for me, don't hold a candle to Zoids xD
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on September 13, 2016, 08:19:12 PM
I never watched Zoids nor even saw their models selling. My only knowledge of them was seeing a GBA game seemingly based on them.

Could you point out Zoid's main selling points, what makes them stand out from other mechas? At first glance (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rgcSpzkxK8) it seems to be "animal-bots!". With the bad guys using dino-skeleton bots. Also something about organic metal from the wiki. Looks like something I could work with. But are the machines sentient? Any special energy sources? Are they powered up by believing in yourself? Do they regen? Also are they more melee based or shooty or hybrid? 
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Rekmond on September 13, 2016, 08:21:39 PM
Zoids has always been a local group favorite, we've run it a few different ways in the past, Fate 2 was especially fun.

      Note, always make sure you know the location of allies BEFORE firing the Charged Particle Cannons

Not entirely sure how to implement it in regard to the material already here though. New Mech chassis, feats, and even a school or two (maybe based on the bond between a sentient mech and the pilot, hmm) sure, but would new classes be needed?

Also, Zoids were renowned for their variations.   How many different Liger models were there?  So would most mechs need a minor upgrade system akin to the Super robots?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Rekmond on September 13, 2016, 09:14:26 PM
I never watched Zoids nor even saw their models selling. My only knowledge of them was seeing a GBA game seemingly based on them.

Could you point out Zoid's main selling points, what makes them stand out from other mechas? At first glance (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rgcSpzkxK8) it seems to be "animal-bots!". With the bad guys using dino-skeleton bots. Also something about organic metal from the wiki. Looks like something I could work with. But are the machines sentient? Any special energy sources? Are they powered up by believing in yourself? Do they regen? Also are they more melee based or shooty or hybrid?

Zoids were indeed sentient to a degree, most only possessed up to animal level intelligence relative to their model however.   There were exceptions to prove the rule, like the ones possessing Black Boxes.

They weren't powered up by believing in yourself or anything, but their performance could be affected by a pilots emotional and mental state. It was normally tactics or some new system that would win you the fight you were just losing, so more Real Pilot aligned I think. However a close relationship with your zoid was necessary to do well with it. The Liger Zero was thought to be worthless because no one could pilot it until Bit Cloud, simply due to it refusing to cooperate.

They possessed a Zoid Core that was essentially their heart and brain rolled up into one nice package, that if damaged would result in their termination without intervention (much like us actually). They could be grown from an intact core, and regenerate slowly.

'Wild' Zoids existed which were those without pilots, they usually maintained themselves through cannibalism of other zoids, devouring another's core in some cases, but depending on the timeline there were zoids that could persist off of metal laden plants or deposits.

Energy source....varies depending on the timeline. In Chaotic Century the Zoid EVE, an ancient Zoidian relic from before humans came supposedly powered all zoids, but later they introduced Reggel, which could be found in nature as well as manmade. A bucket worth was apparently enough to power a large zoid.

And they were fairly well balanced on melee vs ranged, with hard ammunition favored over energy in most cases.

There was also tech warfare with such examples as the Shadow Fox's smokescreen interfering with radar readings, the Killer Dome crab model capable of jamming radar entirely

While the main character always had a Liger as his personal Zoid, allies ran the whole animal kingdom and so did the enemies. Chaotic Century (the 1st timeline wise) each of the 2 main factions favored certain models but that changed in later series when the War was long over.


What makes Zoids stand out in my opinion, in that while robot fighting is still the main draw, it was the bond between the Pilot and Zoid that only grew stronger as the series went on. There was a great team feeling that something like Gundam didn't possess, a reminder of the intelligence of the mechs unlike the *insert super sentai/voltron substitute here*. Super Sentai came close with Wild Force admittedly, with Dino Thunder picking up the Saurs later And it didn't need enormous explosions in every action scene, or endless fan service wouldn't complain if it did though to keep you watching.

There was also the sheer number of mechs and customization compared to anything else at the time.  Pterasaurs, Falcons, Ligers, Gorillas, Tyrannosaurs, Elephants....even flying whales and sharks Whale King and Hammer Kaiser, they were carrier zoids. There was even a Caterpillar zoid.   If you wanted it, they probably had it somewhere.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on September 13, 2016, 11:23:37 PM
Gosh that's such a perfect explanation I had to upvote ya. I couldn't have said it nearly so well

Edit: If anything, os, Zoids could provide a lot more interesting super robot options as you could potentially make them a subset of super robots.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Rekmond on September 14, 2016, 12:47:17 AM
Gosh that's such a perfect explanation I had to upvote ya. I couldn't have said it nearly so well

Edit: If anything, os, Zoids could provide a lot more interesting super robot options as you could potentially make them a subset of super robots.

yay, my 1st upvote.

And the super robot options is something I'd considered when I began thinking about this.

Basically set up different base chassis (Humanoid, Quadruped, Saurian, etc) as options and build from there.

As far as I can recall not many zoids had ranged weapons naturally. If they did it was due to human involvement customizing them.  And the lack of ranged weapons fits into the base Super Robot idea from what I've seen.

A lot of the stunts they pull are right from the Super Pilot playbook too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gha5zf7kGZE

how they actually win This fight especially.
  no luck finding it without being an amv sadly.  Maybe looking it up by episode number..


edit: Said if you wanted it they probably had it.

Took a few to find it, but this could very well prove my claim.

BEHOLD!!! Brony Zoid the Orudios
(http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/zoids/images/4/4f/Orudios.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20081226020311)
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on September 14, 2016, 01:01:57 AM
The different Base Chassis you mentioned actually reminded me of how Pathfinder's Summoner's Eidolon has a similar setup, basically, to how Super Robots work here lol.

Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Rekmond on September 14, 2016, 01:50:39 AM
I hadn't thought of that at all.  Was just trying to think of the easiest method to enable the huge variety of Zoids, without statting out a ridiculous number of models.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on September 29, 2016, 08:50:36 PM
Bunch of general updates:
-New Super upgrades. Soul of the machine to increase max spirit points and spirit regen, paired weapon to get twin-linked weapons that can be further upgraded to combine as a Heavy weapon, Balanced for Finesse , Blasting for Brutal on ranged weapons.
-Increased super robot in-built weapons base damage to 1d10.
-Added levels V, VI and VII  (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=7161.msg178254#msg178254) to the expanded list of real robots.

Didn't forget about Zoids, but first wanted to finish a bunch of stuff already in the backburner.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on September 29, 2016, 09:19:38 PM
I am so conflicted about the new Great One upgrades. Actually picking one is going to be a pain.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on September 29, 2016, 10:09:04 PM
Just as planned. :smirk
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on September 29, 2016, 10:14:25 PM
Eh, I'm due for a total rebuild of the thing anyway (and it hasn't been seen since it blew up round one of having it :lmao), so it's no big deal to work out what the mecha is meant for.

I definitely prefer that version for allowing large mecha to go compensate for at least one of the size aspects/specialise in something regardless of enormity over the version you mentioned in the OOC. Big cost, but the offset once you've got a big enough robot is neat.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on September 29, 2016, 11:29:35 PM
On the topic of Zoids, a new (maybe) anime was teased!!!
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on October 01, 2016, 12:07:32 AM
Can you pick Soul of the Machine multiple times for a stacking effect?

Why are you banned from Hyperdimensional Storage now if you have Mysterious Power and/or Nanomachines?
And while on that, by technicality, " You cannot pick this if you have either Nanomachines or Mysterious Power." BUT does it also mean if you picked it before you gained either of the regen upgrades, that you immediately lose and/or get refunded Hyperdimensional Storage?

Edit: Something I just noticed, but everytime a batch of changes come out to rebalance or buff Reals or Supers or both, all my

Like, basically, every update some how nerfs Supers every time despite constantly adding options for them  :???
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on October 01, 2016, 02:49:47 AM
Can you pick Soul of the Machine multiple times for a stacking effect?
Yes.

Why are you banned from Hyperdimensional Storage now if you have Mysterious Power and/or Nanomachines?
Because they were all basically auto-picks for any and every super robot even with increasing costs.

And while on that, by technicality, " You cannot pick this if you have either Nanomachines or Mysterious Power." BUT does it also mean if you picked it before you gained either of the regen upgrades, that you immediately lose and/or get refunded Hyperdimensional Storage?
That cannot happen as Nanomachines/Mysterious power cannot be picked if you already have Hyperdimensional Storage.

Edit: Something I just noticed, but everytime a batch of changes come out to rebalance or buff Reals or Supers or both, all my

Like, basically, every update some how nerfs Supers every time despite constantly adding options for them  :???
That's because my updates aren't meant to be power creeps. I nerf the options that are too OP while adding new ones.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Rekmond on October 05, 2016, 12:13:13 PM
Such fun additions and updates.
    And don't worry Ketaro, You aren't alone on the hyperdimension and nanomachines/mysterious power conflict.

I understand why....but dislike it. But I think that's the squealing mech fan inside of me that dislikes it....


The base weapon damage for inbuilts being boosted to d10 is a nice relief. Since for Supers cutting them off from dimensional storage meant no arsenal for anything over the d6s without plus sizing yourself.

I think this will all be interesting especially for the Moon Vanguard with the loadout setup. More variety between the loadouts instead of same base with differet weps and accessories.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on October 15, 2016, 10:17:24 PM
I've a question about the Super Robot "Extra" upgrade. It says you get an extra basic weapon built in. Is that another one of the d10+str ones that come default, or what? On a similar note, how do you get ranged weapons like chest blasters and boost knuckles for your Grungust?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on October 15, 2016, 10:29:41 PM
I've a question about the Super Robot "Extra" upgrade. It says you get an extra basic weapon built in. Is that another one of the d10+str ones that come default, or what? On a similar note, how do you get ranged weapons like chest blasters and boost knuckles for your Grungust?

1) Yes.

2) Real Robot multiclassing or Arsenal to get at ranged weapons, then refluff. Or Burning Justice maneuvers.

Which I argue continues to put nanomachines in the worst possible situation, because you're stuffed when it comes to anything but the inbuilt weapons for... healing. Refresh or Guts, one arsenal item to upgrade spirit? Supers have no reason to take the thing only Supers can get, because you lose a stupid amount of options for things you can do better with 25 Arsenal space.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on October 16, 2016, 02:31:13 AM
Another question. I keep seeing mentions of a "Moon Vanguard" class, but I can't seem to find it. Has it been posted?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on October 16, 2016, 05:14:44 AM
Moon Vanguard (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=7993.msg125395#msg125395) is from another project of mine that borrows the mecha rules.

Which I argue continues to put nanomachines in the worst possible situation, because you're stuffed when it comes to anything but the inbuilt weapons for... healing. Refresh or Guts, one arsenal item to upgrade spirit? Supers have no reason to take the thing only Supers can get, because you lose a stupid amount of options for things you can do better with 25 Arsenal space.

I plan to go around adding situational penalties to the non-weapon Arsenal options in the near future. Already did that to some like the armors now slow you down and the shields can't protect you if you're flanked.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on October 17, 2016, 01:07:51 AM
Do mecha weapons count as one or two handed for purposes of Power Attack? Is that just a fluff thing?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on October 17, 2016, 02:11:53 AM
Good question, added a clause to the general mecha combat that a mecha weapons counts as two-handed for Power Attack and similar abilities if you don't use any other weapons for the round.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on October 17, 2016, 11:15:25 AM
How about enchantment? Can you enchant your mecha's weapons? I'm going to assume either you can't, or if you do you don't get to use the Over the Top feature of the I Am Invincible feat, but what if you're not going for that?

Also: The description for growth says standard benefits and penalties for size, except no stat changes and nat armor only increases by 1. By SRD, size changes don't change stats or nat armor at all. What changes are intended to be applied here?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on October 17, 2016, 07:15:08 PM
How about enchantment? Can you enchant your mecha's weapons? I'm going to assume either you can't, or if you do you don't get to use the Over the Top feature of the I Am Invincible feat, but what if you're not going for that?
You can't enchant your mecha's weapons/plating. I'll specify that later in the intro if it's not clear enough yet.

Also: The description for growth says standard benefits and penalties for size, except no stat changes and nat armor only increases by 1. By SRD, size changes don't change stats or nat armor at all. What changes are intended to be applied here?

I have to say I agree with you about the stats ad natural armor change.

However, I've seen a lot of people over the years claim the other way just because of the monster advancement rules by HD. So I just include that clause by default in all my homebrew that changes size just in case.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on October 17, 2016, 07:22:35 PM
Another few questions. Is it at all possible for super robots to get Heavy weapons? because I can't figure out a way to do it aside from Arsenal, and if that's the only way, why does it specify special bonuses for Heavy [Main] Weapons?
Is it at all possible to get an Area weapon on a super without arsenal?
Why do supers have the Blasting upgrade available? They can't have built-in ranged weapons.
And if all Supers get from growth is +1 nat armor...what's the point, and why is it so restricted? +base size and bonus to maneuvers is typically not worth a penalty to hit and AC, so...why?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on October 17, 2016, 07:43:32 PM
Size = higher weapon damage dice, better reach, better grapple modifiers, and carrying capacity explicitly factors it in. It also restricts other people's options regarding what they can do to you. There's also the roleplay benefits and times when sheer common sense means that, no, someone behind a wall can't have cover when the wall comes to your ankle.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on October 17, 2016, 10:26:09 PM
Another few questions. Is it at all possible for super robots to get Heavy weapons? because I can't figure out a way to do it aside from Arsenal,
Pick Paired weapon twice and you can combine them into an Heavy weapon.

and if that's the only way, why does it specify special bonuses for Heavy [Main] Weapons?
You can get a Heavy [Main] weapon by multiclassing Super Pilot with either Real or Ship Captain.

Is it at all possible to get an Area weapon on a super without arsenal?
Not before, but added that option to versatile.

Why do supers have the Blasting upgrade available? They can't have built-in ranged weapons.
Well you can with Transform (tank). Also multiclass.

And if all Supers get from growth is +1 nat armor...what's the point, and why is it so restricted? +base size and bonus to maneuvers is typically not worth a penalty to hit and AC, so...why?

As Raineh pointed out, big nice bonus to damage die and reach. Area property will affect a wider zone. Plus mechas are specifically immune to most effects from smaller non-mecha. Great One uprade also scales strongly with size.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on October 17, 2016, 11:34:02 PM
No weapons (that I can see) have a damage type listed. What damage types are everything? (relevant for bypassing DR)
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on October 18, 2016, 01:02:21 AM
I'll probably check everything new in greater depths later but something stroke my eye when I glanced over the Great One upgrades;
Great Agility grants +40 mu movement speed while the normal seems to have the bonus be equivalent to 4 upgrade points in their respective kind of upgrade, but Agility gives 5 mu per point, so the Great One is effectively doubling the gains in speed.
Just pointing it out in case giving bigger speeds than the norm for four points wasn't intended.
Its colossal bonus to agility is also noted as granting DR.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on October 18, 2016, 12:09:11 PM
No weapons (that I can see) have a damage type listed. What damage types are everything? (relevant for bypassing DR)
1. Echoing.

2. Also as is there is no point in using Minimization. Perhaps Great Agility/Targeting should be adjusted to provide extra bonuses if you focus on being smaller. Arsenal also appears unaffected by changing you mech size, maybe in a way this avoids penalizing Miniaturization but then again Built-Ins are which forces the smaller mechs to use Arsenal which inevitably forces all small Mechs to rely on melee (see below) where they will auto-fail opposing Grapple Checks which presumably disables use of their Arsenal and rely on their inferior Built-Ins for one sided battles.

3. A more in depth look at DPR.
Using Gargantuan, 30 Str/Dex, for the opposing DR without Arsenal you can reach 35 so let's go with that.

A) A Greatsword deals 24d6+10 (94 avg), it costs 6,400gp but while Enhancement costs don't rescale making a Masterwork version costs 44,800 so let's just stick to that normal figure. Assuming three attacks per round because maybe you're looking at taking lv14 that's 118 after DR.
B) Focusing on Mech weapons, you can take Mightyx8, Pairedx1, & Rending. This gives you a double 4d8+26 (44 avg) per attack action, or 156 post DR after six attacks. More attacks, more damage, but costs several upgrade points.
C) For Heavy let's look at the Antiship Beam Sword which is one of the most powerful weapons and as lv3 can be Linked and assuming Mightyx8, you get two attacks of 9d12+36 (94.5) for 119 which comes out pretty close to the cheap Greatsword but has Power/Concussive/Disarming making it a better choice unless you need to trade those Mech properties away for gear-related Arsenal.

Seems fair right? Well let's look at Ranged. A +10 Longbow costs 140,800gp so instead let's just go with a Heavy Repeater for 16d8 (72 avg) which is three attacks and 111 after DR. Built-Ins via Tank become 3d8+26 (39.5 avg) or 129 after DR. And for Arsenal we have two choices, Linked lv3 comes to 3d6+26 (36.5 avg) or 9 after DR and none-Linked comes to 4d6+26 (40 avg) or 15 post DR. Even moving back to a Heavy Railgun for 12d10+36 (102 avg) even after post Rending DR that's only 84. Ranged Arsenal just isn't worth using.

4. Minor nitpick but your Arsenal dice are all over the place with no discernible pattern beyond Ranged gets about an average of 1d6 per level. Like lets look at melee, both heavy & not.
Lv1: 1d8 (4.5) / 2d10 (11)
Lv2: 2d6 (7, +2.5 gain) / 9d8 (40.5, +29.5 gain)
Lv3: 2d6 (7, +0 gain) / 9d12 (58.5, +18 gain)
Lv4: 3d6 (10.5, +3.5 gain) / 12d12 (78, +19.5 gain)
Lv5: 4d6 (14, +3.5 gain) / 20d10 (110, +32 gain)
Lv6: 8d8 (36, +22 gain) / 19d12 (123.5, +13.5 gain)
Lv7: 10d10 (55, +19 gain) / 30d12 (195, +71.5 gain)

Which is probably why Heavy melee's figures can keep up with the other choices.  :eh

6. btw, given the "future" nature of a Super Robot campaign how does this interact with the DMG's modern weapons such as a Shotgun or d20's weapons, since you have rail guns & colossal mechs, say a Pulse Rifle?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on October 18, 2016, 02:59:29 PM
Smaller creatures aren't faster than bigger creatures so speed boosts for being smaller doesn't make much sense.

As for the melee vs. ranged stuff, unless it's a super special weapon system, most fights with giant robots that aren't against disposable looks are generally won in melee in such shows.

That's my opinion *shrugs*
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on October 18, 2016, 08:27:17 PM
No weapons (that I can see) have a damage type listed. What damage types are everything? (relevant for bypassing DR)
1. Echoing.
Added damage types across the boards.

2. Also as is there is no point in using Minimization. Perhaps Great Agility/Targeting should be adjusted to provide extra bonuses if you focus on being smaller. Arsenal also appears unaffected by changing you mech size, maybe in a way this avoids penalizing Miniaturization but then again Built-Ins are which forces the smaller mechs to use Arsenal which inevitably forces all small Mechs to rely on melee (see below) where they will auto-fail opposing Grapple Checks which presumably disables use of their Arsenal and rely on their inferior Built-Ins for one sided battles.
Added arsenal size scaling and miniaturization exception.

3. A more in depth look at DPR.
Using Gargantuan, 30 Str/Dex, for the opposing DR without Arsenal you can reach 35 so let's go with that.

A) A Greatsword deals 24d6+10 (94 avg), it costs 6,400gp but while Enhancement costs don't rescale making a Masterwork version costs 44,800 so let's just stick to that normal figure. Assuming three attacks per round because maybe you're looking at taking lv14 that's 118 after DR.
B) Focusing on Mech weapons, you can take Mightyx8, Pairedx1, & Rending. This gives you a double 4d8+26 (44 avg) per attack action, or 156 post DR after six attacks. More attacks, more damage, but costs several upgrade points.
C) For Heavy let's look at the Antiship Beam Sword which is one of the most powerful weapons and as lv3 can be Linked and assuming Mightyx8, you get two attacks of 9d12+36 (94.5) for 119 which comes out pretty close to the cheap Greatsword but has Power/Concussive/Disarming making it a better choice unless you need to trade those Mech properties away for gear-related Arsenal.

Seems fair right? Well let's look at Ranged. A +10 Longbow costs 140,800gp so instead let's just go with a Heavy Repeater for 16d8 (72 avg) which is three attacks and 111 after DR. Built-Ins via Tank become 3d8+26 (39.5 avg) or 129 after DR. And for Arsenal we have two choices, Linked lv3 comes to 3d6+26 (36.5 avg) or 9 after DR and none-Linked comes to 4d6+26 (40 avg) or 15 post DR. Even moving back to a Heavy Railgun for 12d10+36 (102 avg) even after post Rending DR that's only 84. Ranged Arsenal just isn't worth using.
You're ignoring the fact ranged mecha weapons get to add Dex mod to damage (1,5 times if you don't use other ranged weapons, x2 if it's heavy), plus mecha maneuver/stance synergy and whatnot.

And that the crossow still has range in feet while the railgun has range in mu (420 feet not too shabby).

And that the railgun has +8 to hit (often at least +10 actually since the heavy repeater's base range increment is a whooping 20 mu).

And that's before taking in account the Power property that will further increase the G-Railgun's chances of hitting.

As a famous mecha pilot said, it's pointless how powerful your weapon is if you can't actually land a hit with it. ;)

4. Minor nitpick but your Arsenal dice are all over the place with no discernible pattern beyond Ranged gets about an average of 1d6 per level.
If I wanted a boring pattern, I would've written a boring pattern and posted it instead of writing down individual weapons.

6. btw, given the "future" nature of a Super Robot campaign how does this interact with the DMG's modern weapons such as a Shotgun or d20's weapons, since you have rail guns & colossal mechs, say a Pulse Rifle?

Ask your DM since they're optional rules that aren't even in the srd.

In my case, they don't interact, point.

I'll probably check everything new in greater depths later but something stroke my eye when I glanced over the Great One upgrades;
Great Agility grants +40 mu movement speed while the normal seems to have the bonus be equivalent to 4 upgrade points in their respective kind of upgrade, but Agility gives 5 mu per point, so the Great One is effectively doubling the gains in speed.
Just pointing it out in case giving bigger speeds than the norm for four points wasn't intended.
Its colossal bonus to agility is also noted as granting DR.

Thanks, fixed.

Smaller creatures aren't faster than bigger creatures so speed boosts for being smaller doesn't make much sense.

As for the melee vs. ranged stuff, unless it's a super special weapon system, most fights with giant robots that aren't against disposable looks are generally won in melee in such shows.

That's my opinion *shrugs*

That too. Melee having higher damage output than ranged is a feature, not a bug, since otherwise nobody bothers trying to get in close.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on October 18, 2016, 08:43:49 PM
I'm not sure how many below-medium super robots there are, anyway. Lagann is, but it's meant to combine into bigger and bigger things. Buster Machine #7? Sure, but it's impossible to build Nono within the rules given in the slightest. When a single Getter Machine manages to be a mecha it still seems to avoid actually being small. It's just something that, even when they can do it, ends up going very big regardless.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on October 18, 2016, 08:57:20 PM
There's a typo in the Nanomachines description. It says buying it additional times increases your Reactor level. Should say Regeneration, I think
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on October 18, 2016, 11:28:29 PM
1. Added damage types across the boards.
2. Added arsenal size scaling and miniaturization exception.
3. You're ignoring the fact ranged mecha weapons get to add Dex mod to damage (1,5 times if you don't use other ranged weapons, x2 if it's heavy), plus mecha maneuver/stance synergy and whatnot.
4. If I wanted a boring pattern, I would've written a boring pattern and posted it instead of writing down individual weapons.
5. Ask your DM since they're optional rules that aren't even in the srd. In my case, they don't interact, point.
6. That too. Melee having higher damage output than ranged is a feature, not a bug, since otherwise nobody bothers trying to get in close.
1. Cool.
2., If mech weapons deal more now it'll probably replace simply increasing basic weapons unless you ran out of Arsenal space and the ranged side of Arsenal should catch up some too.
3. No I didn't, the +26 modifier is +10 Dex & +16 for Mightyx8 and the +36 Modifier for the Railgun is by applying Dex twice. I did however miss the x1.5 Rate for same weapon type, I thought using two Built-Ins, or two Antiship Sabers, or w/e & etc, meant no same weapon bonus. That'll tweak a few numbers.
4. Ha :p Seriously through, by switching dice back and forth, kind of like you already did, you can hide the DPR gains for each level being an even scaling increase. Plus all the properties can have a specific weight they add to the balance, you can produce tons of unique variations even through mechanically each one is only better than the other if the circumstances favor it and the never level up is almost always better than the last (specially giving the link property, eg +7 dmg < x2). See also #5.
5. They are "optional" rules because D&D games are set in the 1100s or so, not year ummm.... 5016?
A WoTC official d20 product built off the D&D 3rd Edition ruleset does over this area, and yes Modern has it's own public SRD. D&D registers in as PL3 while Eberron, which stole Modern's Action Point System, registers in at PL4. Are current technology level is supposed to be PL5 and mechs start showing up I think are PL7 and higher.

To call back to #4, there are literately dozens of weapons and equipment split through the PLs and there are a lot of unique weapons to be found. Like beam swords even show up in PL8, but even cooler? There is a gravity gun that use alternating attraction/repulsion to rip their targets apart and that sounds awesome! It's worth knowing Modern's system if you plan to build any type of future campaign and it gives you a ton of content to rip off, like do you have a targeting system that reduces concealment? Why not just steal the entry text for the Mech's X-ray visor? How about in your Star game why do we refer to are comm devices as cell phones instead of pipboys or omnitools? Because ambiguity. No one has asked, nothing has been written. A shortcut? PL8 tech is on the table, ask your DM what you can afford. There is a massive amount of world building content at your fingertips that just wants someone to shed some light on it.

6. The problem isn't Melee>Range and don't be confused with Ketaro's thinking it is. But Ranged Arsenal didn't (past tense since you altered a few things so a new crunch needs made) keep up with anything. You could make pretty viable ranged Built-Ins or increasing the size of basic weapons, just not if you were using Arsenal. I'll have to take a look at the changes tomorrow through and see what all was fixed.

Edit - One thing that may help is standardizing progression.
So like the Antiship Sword is 9d12 which of course appears no where on the table. You could use the de facto standard of +2 Size double and round down which means Large should be 13d12 (84.5 avg). You could also claim that since nothing converts into a d12 you need to switch it to the standard d6 or d8 and since 1d12 increased by one Size is 3d6 that comes out to 27d6 (94.5 avg). Perhaps a little less tactful since A) it deals more this way. B) Everything becomes Xd6 or Xd8. So I suggest the former.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on October 18, 2016, 11:38:45 PM
Given that this is 3.5 homebrew focused entirely on implementing mecha, digging around in what's essentially a separate d20 game for wording is a path to having a scenario that is more confusing and has far many more unevaluated loose ends. I don't think this is a complete rules rewrite akin to Modern. <_<
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on October 18, 2016, 11:49:43 PM
Given that this is 3.5 homebrew focused entirely on implementing mecha, digging around in what's essentially a separate d20 game for wording is a path to having a scenario that is more confusing and has far many more unevaluated loose ends. I don't think this is a complete rules rewrite akin to Modern. <_<
Not really and your missing the point worse than Ketaro. Like where in my post did I even come close to saying use d20's Mech system? Nowhere.

I said steal the flavor from it. Suddenly "G-Revolver " gains the short description of "The G-Revolver uses gravitic inducers that cycled rapidly back and forth between attraction and repulsion, literately tearing the target to pieces.". And if your pdr is OCR'ed it's simply copypasta but now all the Arsenal weapons have unique flavor instead of just a name or very odd die value.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on October 18, 2016, 11:57:49 PM
If I'm missing your point, it's because you go from what was obviously a response to rules to rules from another system to fluff in one paragraph with as little plain English as possible.

I'm all in favour of not having cringeworthy technobabble fluff stuffed into things for padding, by the way.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on October 19, 2016, 12:30:00 AM
If I'm missing your point, it's because you go from what was obviously a response to rules to rules from another system to fluff in one paragraph with as little plain English as possible.
"to rules to rules!"  :eh

I don't really feel Modern is another system but you can pretend it's a super complex system not worth your time understanding if you like. Similarly you can also demand Ols to strip all flavor away for rule-text only because words scare the crap out of you. However my posts are directed at Ols and not the negative Nancy crowd bitching about things for the sake of bitching about things.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on October 19, 2016, 12:39:15 AM
If I'm missing your point, it's because you go from what was obviously a response to rules to rules from another system to fluff in one paragraph with as little plain English as possible.
"to rules to rules!"  :eh

Fine, have the verbose version: rules from outside of 3.5 were rejected, you went on an unnecessarily detailed tangent about some part of the Modern stuff, and then went into fluff in two paragraphs full of incomplete sentences. If the point is fluff, there are quicker and less misleading ways to get to it.

Quote
I don't really feel Modern is another system but you can pretend it's a super complex system not worth your time understanding if you like. Similarly you can also demand Ols to strip all flavor away for rule-text only because words scare the crap out of you. However my posts are directed at Ols and not the negative Nancy crowd bitching about things for the sake of bitching about things.

I think it's more separate from 3.5 than other d20 systems I've played in, so... O_o

Flavour text on mass-produced weapons is just padding. And, well, this is mecha; detailed (copied) fluff on weapons is a waste.  <_<
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on October 19, 2016, 12:56:21 AM
I'm not sure how many below-medium super robots there are, anyway. Lagann is, but it's meant to combine into bigger and bigger things. Buster Machine #7? Sure, but it's impossible to build Nono within the rules given in the slightest. When a single Getter Machine manages to be a mecha it still seems to avoid actually being small. It's just something that, even when they can do it, ends up going very big regardless.


For diminutive super robots, think Tekkaman Blade.

Nono for the most of her show could be a moon vanguard that eventually picks leadership along a crazy Cha score for her personal army. Just her final form that can push planets around can't be stated up right now. It's something I have to tackle one of these days. Maybe a PrC for "uber massive robot"?

There's a typo in the Nanomachines description. It says buying it additional times increases your Reactor level. Should say Regeneration, I think

Fixed, thanks. So many typos... :blush

1. Added damage types across the boards.
2. Added arsenal size scaling and miniaturization exception.
3. You're ignoring the fact ranged mecha weapons get to add Dex mod to damage (1,5 times if you don't use other ranged weapons, x2 if it's heavy), plus mecha maneuver/stance synergy and whatnot.
4. If I wanted a boring pattern, I would've written a boring pattern and posted it instead of writing down individual weapons.
5. Ask your DM since they're optional rules that aren't even in the srd. In my case, they don't interact, point.
6. That too. Melee having higher damage output than ranged is a feature, not a bug, since otherwise nobody bothers trying to get in close.
1. Cool.
2., If mech weapons deal more now it'll probably replace simply increasing basic weapons unless you ran out of Arsenal space and the ranged side of Arsenal should catch up some too.
3. No I didn't, the +26 modifier is +10 Dex & +16 for Mightyx8 and the +36 Modifier for the Railgun is by applying Dex twice. I did however miss the x1.5 Rate for same weapon type, I thought using two Built-Ins, or two Antiship Sabers, or w/e & etc, meant no same weapon bonus. That'll tweak a few numbers.
4. Ha :p Seriously through, by switching dice back and forth, kind of like you already did, you can hide the DPR gains for each level being an even scaling increase. Plus all the properties can have a specific weight they add to the balance, you can produce tons of unique variations even through mechanically each one is only better than the other if the circumstances favor it and the never level up is almost always better than the last (specially giving the link property, eg +7 dmg < x2). See also #5.
5. They are "optional" rules because D&D games are set in the 1100s or so, not year ummm.... 5016?
A WoTC official d20 product built off the D&D 3rd Edition ruleset does over this area, and yes Modern has it's own public SRD. D&D registers in as PL3 while Eberron, which stole Modern's Action Point System, registers in at PL4. Are current technology level is supposed to be PL5 and mechs start showing up I think are PL7 and higher.

To call back to #4, there are literately dozens of weapons and equipment split through the PLs and there are a lot of unique weapons to be found. Like beam swords even show up in PL8, but even cooler? There is a gravity gun that use alternating attraction/repulsion to rip their targets apart and that sounds awesome! It's worth knowing Modern's system if you plan to build any type of future campaign and it gives you a ton of content to rip off, like do you have a targeting system that reduces concealment? Why not just steal the entry text for the Mech's X-ray visor? How about in your Star game why do we refer to are comm devices as cell phones instead of pipboys or omnitools? Because ambiguity. No one has asked, nothing has been written. A shortcut? PL8 tech is on the table, ask your DM what you can afford. There is a massive amount of world building content at your fingertips that just wants someone to shed some light on it.

6. The problem isn't Melee>Range and don't be confused with Ketaro's thinking it is. But Ranged Arsenal didn't (past tense since you altered a few things so a new crunch needs made) keep up with anything. You could make pretty viable ranged Built-Ins or increasing the size of basic weapons, just not if you were using Arsenal. I'll have to take a look at the changes tomorrow through and see what all was fixed.

Edit - One thing that may help is standardizing progression.
So like the Antiship Sword is 9d12 which of course appears no where on the table. You could use the de facto standard of +2 Size double and round down which means Large should be 13d12 (84.5 avg). You could also claim that since nothing converts into a d12 you need to switch it to the standard d6 or d8 and since 1d12 increased by one Size is 3d6 that comes out to 27d6 (94.5 avg). Perhaps a little less tactful since A) it deals more this way. B) Everything becomes Xd6 or Xd8. So I suggest the former.

3.You still didn't adress the part where the mundane weapons have a much worst acuraccy.
4.Look, pure point-buy systems are cute and all, but they already were proved to be a failure. There's a reason why Gurps is some obscure barely played system while D&D/Pathfinder ended up the cool RPGs. And that reason is because no matter how hard you try to balance your pure point-buy system, you can never fully account for synergy, leading to eventually people figuring out the most synergetic como and not using anything else. Case in point, the Super Robot is only half-point buy and still has been a pain in the ass to refine. If I also turn the weapons into a point buy, then all I end with is one single weapon build that everybody takes because everything else will be less self-synergetic. And that's a double failure when you take in account that big robots are supposed to be bristling with different types of weaponry pratically be damned. Tl.Dr, fuck pure point buy with a giga rust getter voltekka.
5. I agree that the arsenal stuff could use some minor fluff bits. But honestly I've got plenty of other stuff in the backburner to do first. And if I had an urge to do it, I would probably use something I actually have at hand and have solid familiarity with. I've never played d20 modern, don't have the books, don't know where the srd is, and don't even know what PLX is about (please don't try to explain, if I wanted to know I would search it myself).
6. Whot? :psyduck
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on October 19, 2016, 01:04:19 AM
Partly my issue with the lack of ranged access on super robots is I can't figure out what maneuver to use for a Cross Smasher or a Black Hole Cluster  :P
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Rekmond on October 19, 2016, 01:12:25 AM

4.Look, pure point-buy systems are cute and all, but they already were proved to be a failure. There's a reason why Gurps is some obscure barely played system while D&D/Pathfinder ended up the cool RPGs. And that reason is because no matter how hard you try to balance your pure point-buy system, you can never fully account for synergy, leading to eventually people figuring out the most synergistic combo and not using anything else. Case in point, the Super Robot is only half-point buy and still has been a pain in the ass to refine. If I also turn the weapons into a point buy, then all I end with is one single weapon build that everybody takes because everything else will be less self-synergistic. And that's a double failure when you take in account that big robots are supposed to be bristling with different types of weaponry practically be damned. Tl.Dr, fuck pure point buy with a giga rust getter voltekka.

You would run into the same problem with Mekton Zeta. There were multiple ways to do the stealth god build where nothing could ever detect you.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on October 19, 2016, 01:12:47 AM
I'm going to echo Os' "Whot" in response to point #6 and a later post of Soro's subtly bashing my apparent complete loss of some sort of point he was making?

Because what I actually said was directly in relation to how Os' SRW homebrew reflects how giant robots/mecha are depicted in their respective games/shows and had nothing to do with the massive number crunching you're trying to do :p
Case in point:
most fights with giant robots that aren't against disposable mooks are generally won in melee in such shows.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on October 19, 2016, 10:54:38 AM
most fights with giant robots that aren't against disposable mooks are generally won in melee in such shows.
Well sure, but there are a bunch of giant robots that have their final moves be ranged, too. Gravion, Dancouga, Baldios, Zeorymer off the top of my head.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on October 19, 2016, 12:27:48 PM
3.You still didn't adress the part where the mundane weapons have a much worst acuraccy.
That's easy enough.

Repeating the examples from before, blowing 19 Upgrade Points & 75 Arsenal a Super Mech can get 43+Dex AC. His opponent spends 8 Upgrade Points and 25 Arsenal points to counter and even using a nonmagical weapon with no Feats or Class Features added in has a 65% chance to hit and I purposely avoided bringing in magic because someone didn't like my Splitting example else where and called it broken.

But then there is this.
You can't enchant your mecha's weapons/plating. I'll specify that later in the intro if it's not clear enough yet.
Which of course does not affect normal weapons. The Enhancement Bonus cost is the same on a Colossal+++ weapon as it is on a Fine--- weapon, the only thing that changes is the Masterwork fee which can be bypassed with stuff like Magic Weapon, or Minor Schemas of Weapon Augmentation or Concurrent Infusions, or Hilted Wands of Wraithstrike. So honestly Mech weapons are not the only thing with bonuses to attack.

Likewise, since a majority of that 43 AC comes from Dodge bonuses (agilityx8 & bio sensor) you can use the Natch System to remove them, reducing your target's optimized AC by at least twelve points. It's one of the reasons I spammed it on Bahamut at the start of the Phantasy Star campaign even through the modifier was pretty low, if you roll badly on Spot it meant I would hit with anything anyway.

4. That's a little extreme tilted, I'm just talking about narrowing the wide dots like one Arsenal level gives a +0 increase to ranged damage while another Arsenal level gives almost +100 to melee. That's a pretty wide margin and you don't have to move to a Point Buy system to fix it, just trim the dice averages a little closer together and maybe try to compensate for Rending's ability to ignore half the target's DR. This also directly correlates with #6 because in your near random figures you've produced a problem that ranged Arsenal weapons don't really serve much use.

5. I figured you would flavor things as some point, you typically do with the rest of your homebrew. Stealing what you can from Modern will give you copypasta through and speed the process up. I might know a guy with none-OCR'ed PDFs if you know a guy with a good OCR program *shiftyeyes*.

6. *sighes* tl;dr.
Mech melee deals 156, Mech ranged deals 129.
D&D melee deals 118, D&D ranged deals 111.
Arsenal melee deals 119, Arsenal ranged deals 15 (85 if heavy).
And no that two digit number for Arsenal's ranged is not a typo.
Slightly depreciated since Arsenal weapons now scale by Size and I haven't recrunched the values.
Which speaking of, did you catch the edit to explain how you want the dice to progress?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on October 19, 2016, 02:58:44 PM
most fights with giant robots that aren't against disposable mooks are generally won in melee in such shows.
Well sure, but there are a bunch of giant robots that have their final moves be ranged, too. Gravion, Dancouga, Baldios, Zeorymer off the top of my head.

Which I also covered in my own post that I quoted for exclusions being for those really rare times when it's a "super special weapon system". Really not common.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on October 19, 2016, 07:07:15 PM
most fights with giant robots that aren't against disposable mooks are generally won in melee in such shows.
Well sure, but there are a bunch of giant robots that have their final moves be ranged, too. Gravion, Dancouga, Baldios, Zeorymer off the top of my head.

Which I also covered in my own post that I quoted for exclusions being for those really rare times when it's a "super special weapon system". Really not common.
But saying "Unless it's with a super special weapon system" is like saying "Unless it's a normal fight". Most super robot shows just pull out some new weapon every other episode, then default back to the normal finisher
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on October 19, 2016, 07:18:20 PM
I'm not sure how many of them would fall into Arsenal ("here, give your thing a gun") and not inbuilt weapons or maneuvers.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on October 20, 2016, 11:26:55 AM
What's the damage die on an Arcane Pilot's familiar pods?

Also, the Arcane Pilot's Favored Spell class feature says it improves their maneuvers. I'm going to assume that meant spells?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on October 21, 2016, 03:36:49 PM
What's the damage die on an Arcane Pilot's familiar pods?
Quote
Familiar:At 4th level the Arcane Pilot can summon a familiar as a sorceror/wizard. If he does so, his Arcane Robot will develop a special combat pod that can be piloted by the familiar. It has all the properties of the "parent" super robot, except
-Half max HP and 1/5 max energy.
-Only one natural weapon, however it can be shot with a range of 25 feet plus 5 feet per 2 CL, dealing untyped damage. Don't add or substract any stat mod to the damage in this case, and they ignore DR.
-Two size category smaller than the "parent" HP. Don't change ability scores, natural armor or natural weapon damage.
So say you had a Gargantuan Mech, it's 1d10 Built-Ins become 4d8 and your Familiar uses 2d8 or about 9 damage per attack if they hit. More if you use Mighty which isn't a "stat mod".

I had a post related to this in the Phantasy Star game and my post observed that a Familiar copies the Hyperdimensional Storage upgrade allowing it to take Arsenal. So if you're level 14 pick up some Large Rectangular Launchers. since there is no clarification how to advance dice oddities, favorably it comes out to 18d8+[250% DexMod]*2, @+10 Dex & Mightyx8 that's 122 per shot. It's a lot but when you get into Evocation, and good Spells to which the Arcane Pilot has none, Familiars are pretty handy for multiplying your damage anyway. They come with the downside of XP lose if they die through so it's like dialing Glass Cannon up to eleven.

The real break point if you go this route though is that the Arcane Pilot can snag multiple Familiars. Extra FamiliarDragon280 is the only other method that can do this outside of other homebrew. And as you can expect, things get about as silly as a White Raven Specialist with Leadership.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on October 21, 2016, 05:32:18 PM
What's the damage die on an Arcane Pilot's familiar pods?
Quote
Familiar:At 4th level the Arcane Pilot can summon a familiar as a sorceror/wizard. If he does so, his Arcane Robot will develop a special combat pod that can be piloted by the familiar. It has all the properties of the "parent" super robot, except
-Half max HP and 1/5 max energy.
-Only one natural weapon, however it can be shot with a range of 25 feet plus 5 feet per 2 CL, dealing untyped damage. Don't add or substract any stat mod to the damage in this case, and they ignore DR.
-Two size category smaller than the "parent" HP. Don't change ability scores, natural armor or natural weapon damage.
So say you had a Gargantuan Mech, it's 1d10 Built-Ins become 4d8 and your Familiar uses 2d8 or about 9 damage per attack if they hit. More if you use Mighty which isn't a "stat mod".

I had a post related to this in the Phantasy Star game and my post observed that a Familiar copies the Hyperdimensional Storage upgrade allowing it to take Arsenal. So if you're level 14 pick up some Large Rectangular Launchers. since there is no clarification how to advance dice oddities, favorably it comes out to 18d8+[250% DexMod]*2, @+10 Dex & Mightyx8 that's 122 per shot. It's a lot but when you get into Evocation, and good Spells to which the Arcane Pilot has none, Familiars are pretty handy for multiplying your damage anyway. They come with the downside of XP lose if they die through so it's like dialing Glass Cannon up to eleven.

The real break point if you go this route though is that the Arcane Pilot can snag multiple Familiars. Extra FamiliarDragon280 is the only other method that can do this outside of other homebrew. And as you can expect, things get about as silly as a White Raven Specialist with Leadership.

So it's based on the built-in Super Robot weapons? (also, keep in mind that it says the size change doesn't affect the weapon damage)
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on October 21, 2016, 05:52:22 PM
So it's based on the built-in Super Robot weapons? (also, keep in mind that it says the size change doesn't affect the weapon damage)
That's for Minimization only.
Quote
Growth: The super robot becomes one size category larger, gaining all standard advantages and penalties except ability score changes, and its Natural armor bonus only increases by 1. This can only be taken once for every 4 pilot levels. You cannot pick this if you picked Miniaturization.

Miniaturization: The super robot becomes one size category smaller, gaining all standard advantages and penalties except ability score changes, and it's Natural armor and In Built/Arsenal weapons damage doesn't change either. This can only be taken once for every 4 pilot levels, up to diminutive size at 12th pilot level. You cannot pick this if you picked Growth.
All through banning from taking both isn't really that helpful. Spend two upgrade points for +1 NA-AC & +1 Size to Built-Ins? Meh. Arsenal Melee probably dominates anyway.

Also it seems like I misread that -2 Size thing, that's HP only even through Mech's don't gain HP based on Size.
All I can really say is welcome to my world. I've been dealing with things like this for almost four years now.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on October 22, 2016, 03:16:17 PM
A few things.

Mecha buffs and Androids:
Quote
The mecha uses the pilot's base saves, BAB, skill bonuses, feats, and self-buff class abilities for fighting
Is it meant to include racial abilities? Since the classes that grant new weapons are available to the mecha, is an android's integrated technology weapon added to the mecha's built-in weapons? It would only be the arsenal 1, though, as long as it doesn't choose to swap it for one of the mecha's. One With the Machine suggests androids are mostly meant to pilot mechas as otherwise all they get is an arsenal weapon and a penalty. The CAST type is minor.
If racial abilities do not pass to the mecha, is a mecha unaffected by the soulless negative ability?

Cheer/Fortune spirits: Might want to put a limit to it so that someone with, say, Leadership, do not get a huge amount of extra weapons/feats by training his horde and having weak mooks fed to them.
Dream spirit: As written, if someone uses Dream to mimic Gain, Cheer, Gamble and Fortune... they'll keep each effect going until they use Dream to emulate them again. Which is too good considering they'll likely never emulate them again anyway.

Friendship/Devotion relationship feat: Same as Cheer, with a group of minions that keep bringing you back/giving you rerolls and the like.

Arsenal: Any reach weapons in there? Doesn't seem to be any except for the Field Lance, maybe.
Also I see that now that they are increasing with size, optimizing their damage becomes very easy despite the limit set through energy and ammo. Perhaps the damage increase for size should be static for arsenal weapons rather than exponential; A damage increase that is the same for all weapons. That or reducing the high number of dice and the costs. Perhaps. That's the first impression, at least. I'd need a moment to test it out.
I'll probably work on a review of the new Machine discipline when I'm back later this evening.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on October 22, 2016, 04:41:01 PM
Also I see that now that they are increasing with size, optimizing their damage becomes very easy despite the limit set through energy and ammo. Perhaps the damage increase for size should be static for arsenal weapons rather than exponential
I was thinking of the same thing the other day but there is no easy way to do this.

+X damage per Size increase is the simplest but it doesn't keep up with normal weapons or Built-Ins which use exponential increases. Ideally all choices should be balanced in terms of each other without resorting to banning.

+X per die is also an easy solution but it's one that empowers already powerful weapons to become even more powerful than the weaker ones. For example, @+2/size/die a Huge 6d10 Burst Railgun gains +24 but a 9d8 Heat Rod gets +36 increasing the gap between them from 7.5 to 19.5. You could only use this if you didn't already have a problem with weapon gaps.

A more time consuming solution would be to rebuild the Arsenal table using the expected values. Like if a Longsword deals 6d6 at Colossal, then a Mech's level 1 sword choice should to. Level 2 Arsenal could see the additional of limited attack bonuses and/or new properties to keep up with the ability to enhance normal weapons. But it's important not to go overboard, a lv2 weapon should not be the equivalent of a +4 Sweeping Splitting Dagger to make it appealing. Ols did design some good props and those should be the focus for appeal. Like Power is a unique lower level alternative to Brilliant Energy, Rending is the only way to deal with DR X/-, Pinning is a scaling effect that D&D handles through binary bursts and so on. If you end up exceeding HP expectations, that can simply be made up in one sentence (just tweak the hp formula). And as a side effect, it also further differentiates a none-mech being able to take down mech opponents to promote mech usage over character optimization. Or, stop trying to charge everything with your axe and participate in robot fights! But again, veeerrrryyyy time consuming.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on October 22, 2016, 04:53:21 PM
That's not character optimisation, that's misreading the fight and being lazy about updating character sheets. :p

Though there's an entire feat based on doing just that.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on October 22, 2016, 06:13:42 PM
Quote
+X damage per Size increase is the simplest but it doesn't keep up with normal weapons or Built-Ins which use exponential increases. Ideally all choices should be balanced in terms of each other without resorting to banning.
I'd recommend keeping it all super simple and avoid everyone having to figure what's the next size (not hard, but still...) by having all size increases progress as if they were a greatsword. No matter the base die.
Normal -> Large = +1d6 dmg
Large -> Huge = +1d6 dmg
Huge -> Gargantuan = +2d6 dmg
Gargantuan -> Colossal = +2d6 dmg

Maybe an extra d6 per increase for heavy weapons. That way weapons with a huge base damage get better with size as well and remain better than the rest without getting blown out of proportions.
The same could apply to Real Robots' built-in weapons if they were to have their sizes changed. Normal weapons remain as is, since they have their own rules and are usually found with a reasonable die-size for their medium-sized base damage.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on October 22, 2016, 07:59:24 PM
So, if a Battleship Captain/Super Pilot puts main weapon on his main guns, he'll be doing 114d6 damage at level 20 on an Area weapon. Sure, it's Heavy, but that's still absurd
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on October 22, 2016, 08:52:46 PM
So, if a Battleship Captain/Super Pilot puts main weapon on his main guns, he'll be doing 114d6 damage at level 20 on an Area weapon. Sure, it's Heavy, but that's still absurd
:plotting

Main Beam Cannon 1d12(S)
Size: huge by default. A captain may choose to start with a bigger battleship up to colossal size, but this won't grant any mechanical benefit besides being able to carry more mechas, filling a bigger space and bigger size penalty to AC and attack rolls. This decision may be changed whenever another Ship Captain level is gained.
You mean 20d12 right? Also that only comes out to 98 damage, or 93 after a +10 Modifier with single weapon & Heavy bonuses and Mightyx10 vs a now drastically out scaled 35 DR.

Let's look at the Boost Hammer's 8d8 & Linked for a lv20 Mech-Medium Sized Real Pilot: 424 after DR.
Also 114d6 only deals 399 damage on average, or 364 after DR making it only 85% of melee's old damage.
So while your calculation is inaccurate and better than the rest of the ranged weapons, it still comes up short.
But yes, after Ols's patch to outscale normal weapons the same hammer now deals 2,440 after DR which I think is supposed to be your real point.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on October 22, 2016, 09:15:36 PM
In my unqualified opinion the system needs a huge rehaul and I got bored.

So I thought of a rough draft for mechanics, but since Ols fears everything looking alike I won't tell you the secrets. Glance at this and tell me which ones totally are copies of uncreative stagnation.
(click to show/hide)
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on October 22, 2016, 09:41:07 PM
So, if a Battleship Captain/Super Pilot puts main weapon on his main guns, he'll be doing 114d6 damage at level 20 on an Area weapon. Sure, it's Heavy, but that's still absurd
:plotting

Main Beam Cannon 1d12(S)
Size: huge by default. A captain may choose to start with a bigger battleship up to colossal size, but this won't grant any mechanical benefit besides being able to carry more mechas, filling a bigger space and bigger size penalty to AC and attack rolls. This decision may be changed whenever another Ship Captain level is gained.
You mean 20d12 right? Also that only comes out to 98 damage, or 93 after a +10 Modifier with single weapon & Heavy bonuses and Mightyx10 vs a now drastically out scaled 35 DR.

Let's look at the Boost Hammer's 8d8 & Linked for a lv20 Mech-Medium Sized Real Pilot: 424 after DR.
Also 114d6 only deals 399 damage on average, or 364 after DR making it only 85% of melee's old damage.
So while your calculation is inaccurate and better than the rest of the ranged weapons, it still comes up short.
But yes, after Ols's patch to outscale normal weapons the same hammer now deals 2,440 after DR which I think is supposed to be your real point.
That's why I specified cross-classing and using a Main Weapon. each instance of the Main Weapon upgrade increase die size by 1, and you can take it 3 times for your Main Weapon
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on October 22, 2016, 09:54:27 PM
Battleship=Mech?
Nothing in the text seems to support it in the Ship Captain thread.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on October 22, 2016, 10:00:40 PM
Battleship=Mech?
Nothing in the text seems to support it in the Ship Captain thread.
It's in the introduction

Ship Captain multiclassing with others:

(click to show/hide)
...Reading it again, I did the damage wrong, because you need to take 4 levels of super robot pilot, not 1. It's only 96d6. And while it is less damage, it's an Area weapon, so it can hit a lot more targets
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on October 23, 2016, 08:02:23 PM
So I've started up a campaign, and is it just me, or is Iron Charge absurd? on a super robot, with no boosts to move speed, that's basically just +6 AC and saves as a stance, with no downsides other than not being in a different stance. if your primary weapon is area? +18 to both. Am I missing something? because those numbers are insane. It should be, at the very best, +1 per 10 Mu, not per 5Mu, or only count displacement, not movement (as it stands, you can move three squares back, then three squares forward, for +6 AC and saves). Maybe cap the bonus at half pilot level?

One more thing about Iron Charge. Is it supposed to be +1 save every 4 Mu? should that be every 5?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on October 23, 2016, 09:38:42 PM
So I've started up a campaign, and is it just me, or is Iron Charge absurd?
Iron Fury is Dervish's 10th level 1/day capstone about twelve levels earlier and multi-use. And if you're Magic Jar'ed or Mind Switched Unbreakable Will ignores the effect so I guess there is now two of you or maybe it's a temporary switch back (what if your old body was reduced to ashes?). I suppose it's still better than Break the Unbreakable out of Burning Justice. You can just sit in a portable hole on another plane and auto-hit anyone.
*shrugs*
You should try reading Danger Zone's 9th, as long as the weapon you choose uses ammo/energy you can spam it until it's dry. Quick calc would be Colossal lv5 Heavy Beam, 80d8 damage for 1 energy, @+10 ability, Heavy, Mightyx9, add another +48 to that, then of fource you have to work out Energy. 170 base, 180 for Batteryx9, a lv4 Large Generator for +50 more, and a lv2 Generator for +10 more. That's 80d8+48 (408/hit, or assuming DR 40/- 368, four hundred and ten attacks later and you dealt 77,080 damage.

Now use Battle Lust to gain +7,708 Strength for one round and combine it a Linked Brutal weapon, Arsenal or Mech Upgraded (slash ripped has area), and don't forget that +50% bonus for using one type of weapon. [W]+X+5,781 per attack, two attacks per attack action, and at least four attacks for your Full-Round Action and you should easily hit close to fifty thousand damage for your round two follow up.

Which gives you a +5,000 Strength bonus for the next round!
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on October 23, 2016, 09:56:26 PM
Didn't you lecture me about using Sadism with a laser once when I hadn't considered the group thing?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on October 23, 2016, 11:36:29 PM
Didn't you lecture me about using Sadism with a laser once when I hadn't considered the group thing?
Yep I did.

And if you paid more attention, CKirk pointed out a Maneuver was broken so I pointed out the other two in the same School of the Same level were as well, and then remarked it's still not as bad as another, or this one because here it deals seventy five thousand damage. I'm far some saying it was a good thing.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on October 23, 2016, 11:45:57 PM
Mostly, it's just that you're making the point more complex than it needs to be. There's something that can do absurd damage in one go, sure, but...

Effects that benefit hugely from doing damage are a separate kettle of fish entirely. Seems odd to not stick to the one point (maneuver has out of hand damage) when there's so many things in the system that a single effect with uncapped scaling is all sorts of trouble anyway .
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on October 24, 2016, 12:35:27 AM
Mostly, it's just that you're making the point more complex than it needs to be. There's something that can do absurd damage in one go, sure, but...

Effects that benefit hugely from doing damage are a separate kettle of fish entirely. Seems odd to not stick to the one point (maneuver has out of hand damage) when there's so many things in the system that a single effect with uncapped scaling is all sorts of trouble anyway .
I just brought up a very simplified point that lv5 Colossal Arsenal melee weapon deals 80d8 and can be linked to double the attacks if you have lv6 access less than 10 posts ago and it's on this very page.  :eh

Have you ever stopped to consider I'm not using to many words or I'm not using complex figures?
I'd guess probably not, because we know that that in-sin-u-ates.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on October 24, 2016, 01:25:29 AM
Random musings: I was thinking about removing energy progression and standardizing costs, since right now energy reserves scale pretty quickly but energy costs don't scale at all. Make energy work more like how arsenal costs work right now. Anyone has thoughts on it?

What's the damage die on an Arcane Pilot's familiar pods?
Same as the "parent" super robot.

Also, the Arcane Pilot's Favored Spell class feature says it improves their maneuvers. I'm going to assume that meant spells?
Correct, fixed.

A few things.

Mecha buffs and Androids:
Quote
The mecha uses the pilot's base saves, BAB, skill bonuses, feats, and self-buff class abilities for fighting
Is it meant to include racial abilities? Since the classes that grant new weapons are available to the mecha, is an android's integrated technology weapon added to the mecha's built-in weapons? It would only be the arsenal 1, though, as long as it doesn't choose to swap it for one of the mecha's. One With the Machine suggests androids are mostly meant to pilot mechas as otherwise all they get is an arsenal weapon and a penalty. The CAST type is minor.
If racial abilities do not pass to the mecha, is a mecha unaffected by the soulless negative ability?
Racial abilities pass to the mecha. Although I would disagree with "CAST type is minor" since it's pretty much the same as warforged and warforged are one of the most popular 3.5 races.

Cheer/Fortune spirits: Might want to put a limit to it so that someone with, say, Leadership, do not get a huge amount of extra weapons/feats by training his horde and having weak mooks fed to them.
Good point, added non-stacking.

Dream spirit: As written, if someone uses Dream to mimic Gain, Cheer, Gamble and Fortune... they'll keep each effect going until they use Dream to emulate them again. Which is too good considering they'll likely never emulate them again anyway.
Added that they end if you Dream again.

Friendship/Devotion relationship feat: Same as Cheer, with a group of minions that keep bringing you back/giving you rerolls and the like.
Well that's actually intended to promote "kill the mooks first/simultaneously!".

Arsenal: Any reach weapons in there? Doesn't seem to be any except for the Field Lance, maybe.
No reach. It's kinda of a clunky mechanic to begin with and not really in the spirit of mecha.

Also I see that now that they are increasing with size, optimizing their damage becomes very easy despite the limit set through energy and ammo. Perhaps the damage increase for size should be static for arsenal weapons rather than exponential; A damage increase that is the same for all weapons. That or reducing the high number of dice and the costs. Perhaps. That's the first impression, at least. I'd need a moment to test it out.
I'll probably work on a review of the new Machine discipline when I'm back later this evening.
Quote
+X damage per Size increase is the simplest but it doesn't keep up with normal weapons or Built-Ins which use exponential increases. Ideally all choices should be balanced in terms of each other without resorting to banning.
I'd recommend keeping it all super simple and avoid everyone having to figure what's the next size (not hard, but still...) by having all size increases progress as if they were a greatsword. No matter the base die.
Normal -> Large = +1d6 dmg
Large -> Huge = +1d6 dmg
Huge -> Gargantuan = +2d6 dmg
Gargantuan -> Colossal = +2d6 dmg

Maybe an extra d6 per increase for heavy weapons. That way weapons with a huge base damage get better with size as well and remain better than the rest without getting blown out of proportions.
The same could apply to Real Robots' built-in weapons if they were to have their sizes changed. Normal weapons remain as is, since they have their own rules and are usually found with a reasonable die-size for their medium-sized base damage.
That sounds good, added it to the Index. Thanks!


So, if a Battleship Captain/Super Pilot puts main weapon on his main guns, he'll be doing 114d6 damage at level 20 on an Area weapon. Sure, it's Heavy, but that's still absurd
With the new sizing rules that should be less crazy.

So I've started up a campaign, and is it just me, or is Iron Charge absurd? on a super robot, with no boosts to move speed, that's basically just +6 AC and saves as a stance, with no downsides other than not being in a different stance. if your primary weapon is area? +18 to both. Am I missing something? because those numbers are insane. It should be, at the very best, +1 per 10 Mu, not per 5Mu, or only count displacement, not movement (as it stands, you can move three squares back, then three squares forward, for +6 AC and saves). Maybe cap the bonus at half pilot level?

One more thing about Iron Charge. Is it supposed to be +1 save every 4 Mu? should that be every 5?
Nerfed it to +1 AC/saves per 15 mu moved in a straight line and only triggers out of basic movement.

So I've started up a campaign, and is it just me, or is Iron Charge absurd?
Iron Fury is Dervish's 10th level 1/day capstone about twelve levels earlier and multi-use. And if you're Magic Jar'ed or Mind Switched Unbreakable Will ignores the effect so I guess there is now two of you or maybe it's a temporary switch back (what if your old body was reduced to ashes?). I suppose it's still better than Break the Unbreakable out of Burning Justice. You can just sit in a portable hole on another plane and auto-hit anyone.
*shrugs*
You should try reading Danger Zone's 9th, as long as the weapon you choose uses ammo/energy you can spam it until it's dry. Quick calc would be Colossal lv5 Heavy Beam, 80d8 damage for 1 energy, @+10 ability, Heavy, Mightyx9, add another +48 to that, then of fource you have to work out Energy. 170 base, 180 for Batteryx9, a lv4 Large Generator for +50 more, and a lv2 Generator for +10 more. That's 80d8+48 (408/hit, or assuming DR 40/- 368, four hundred and ten attacks later and you dealt 77,080 damage.

Now use Battle Lust to gain +7,708 Strength for one round and combine it a Linked Brutal weapon, Arsenal or Mech Upgraded (slash ripped has area), and don't forget that +50% bonus for using one type of weapon. [W]+X+5,781 per attack, two attacks per attack action, and at least four attacks for your Full-Round Action and you should easily hit close to fifty thousand damage for your round two follow up.

Which gives you a +5,000 Strength bonus for the next round!
Nerfed Iron Fury and Battle Lust as well.

3.You still didn't adress the part where the mundane weapons have a much worst acuraccy.
That's easy enough.

Repeating the examples from before, blowing 19 Upgrade Points & 75 Arsenal a Super Mech can get 43+Dex AC. His opponent spends 8 Upgrade Points and 25 Arsenal points to counter and even using a nonmagical weapon with no Feats or Class Features added in has a 65% chance to hit and I purposely avoided bringing in magic because someone didn't like my Splitting example else where and called it broken.
65% chance.
At 20 mu range.
For the first shot.

The railgun can actually reliably shoot things further away than they can just step closer and punch you. The colossal crossbow is a glorified melee weapon with a bit more reach.

But then there is this.
You can't enchant your mecha's weapons/plating. I'll specify that later in the intro if it's not clear enough yet.
Which of course does not affect normal weapons. The Enhancement Bonus cost is the same on a Colossal+++ weapon as it is on a Fine--- weapon, the only thing that changes is the Masterwork fee which can be bypassed with stuff like Magic Weapon, or Minor Schemas of Weapon Augmentation or Concurrent Infusions, or Hilted Wands of Wraithstrike. So honestly Mech weapons are not the only thing with bonuses to attack.
But the mech wapon attack bonus is in-built. You don't need to spend actions/WBL/feats, and can spend those resources in other more interesting stuff And even weapon enhancement only goes up to +5 to attack rolls pre-epic, whereas the high level arsenal weapons can have over +10 bonus.

More in particular, you can ditch a mecha weapon and get a replacement fast and easy out of combat. But if your pimped repeating crossbow gets, say,  disarmed, you need to make a priority recovering it. And you're stuck with it for a lot of levels.

Likewise, since a majority of that 43 AC comes from Dodge bonuses (agilityx8 & bio sensor) you can use the Natch System to remove them, reducing your target's optimized AC by at least twelve points. It's one of the reasons I spammed it on Bahamut at the start of the Phantasy Star campaign even through the modifier was pretty low, if you roll badly on Spot it meant I would hit with anything anyway.
That goes for both weapons. It just means the railgun can reliably snipe you from even further away.

4. That's a little extreme tilted, I'm just talking about narrowing the wide dots like one Arsenal level gives a +0 increase to ranged damage while another Arsenal level gives almost +100 to melee. That's a pretty wide margin and you don't have to move to a Point Buy system to fix it, just trim the dice averages a little closer together and maybe try to compensate for Rending's ability to ignore half the target's DR. This also directly correlates with #6 because in your near random figures you've produced a problem that ranged Arsenal weapons don't really serve much use.
Maybe that's just me, but I believe ranged weapons purpose is to fight at range, not close in to 20 mu to have slightly better than 50% odds at hitting your targets. However I can't push their damage too high or melee mechas get blown up before they ever get a chance to close in.

Which speaking of, did you catch the edit to explain how you want the dice to progress?[/i]

I choose how I want the dice to progress around here, thank you very much.

A more time consuming solution would be to rebuild the Arsenal table using the expected values. Like if a Longsword deals 6d6 at Colossal, then a Mech's level 1 sword choice should to.
Barring shenigans, you can never afford a colossal longsword at level 1.

Level 2 Arsenal could see the additional of limited attack bonuses and/or new properties to keep up with the ability to enhance normal weapons.
In case I still didn't make it clear enough, fiddly weapon customization can go die in a black hole for this project. Mechas regularly discard and swap weapons like normal people swap socks. Spending half your resources into a single one will not be an option.

In my unqualified opinion the system needs a huge rehaul and I got bored.

So I thought of a rough draft for mechanics, but since Ols fears everything looking alike I won't tell you the secrets. Glance at this and tell me which ones totally are copies of uncreative stagnation.

Weapons with zero special properties, cheap pulp fiction jokes, null cost values and thus no way to determine how many a mecha can carry, extra resource accounting, new borked ability, no.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on October 24, 2016, 02:32:30 AM
Sound. Thanks for your thoroughness.

Quote
"CAST type is minor" since it's pretty much the same as warforged and warforged are one of the most popular 3.5 races.
Thought the immunities it does get were denied as well. Didn't see it right. Never mind!

Quote
Quote
Friendship/Devotion relationship feat: Same as Cheer, with a group of minions that keep bringing you back/giving you rerolls and the like.
Well that's actually intended to promote "kill the mooks first/simultaneously!".
That might be pretty hard considering they don't even have to be there. They can take turns using it while miles away in their homes since they don't even require being close or even seeing the fight.

Even with proximity rules, they could be standing about in plain sight among other civilians and watching the fight. Can't start a witch-hunt in the middle of a fight so you're mostly stuck with indiscriminate slaughter.
I don't see a way to stop abusing this that doesn't involve a cooldown between applications. One 2nd effect per round and one 3rd effect per minute or somesuch. There's certainly another ways to deal with it but as is it is way too easy. Or then everyone gets a hundred minion spammers and the fights never end.

Quote
Random musings: I was thinking about removing energy progression and standardizing costs, since right now energy reserves scale pretty quickly but energy costs don't scale at all. Make energy work more like how arsenal costs work right now. Anyone has thoughts on it?
Tricky. Something to consider... would removing all extra reactor options be a bad thing? Or perhaps increasing the recovery cost of the maneuvers to make them harder to spam.
Getting more energy already increases the amount recovered every round, so having enough energy is still possible to those that invest in it while making it harder to manage for those who don't. Maybe coupled with lower energy gains if you want to make it harder to manage.
The maneuver's energy-based recovery otherwise has to be revamped with your suggested standardization. If you do bring it to every maneuver's recovery costing the same, however, you may have to bring back the readied maneuvers since the resource per level is no longer linked to their power (since having acces to everything known like a sorcerer is no longer limited by higher costs for strongest stuff).
I'd say go for standardization since many low-level maneuvers scale and having to get the costs to account for it (such as they do with psionic powers) is too much of a hassle.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on October 24, 2016, 05:06:33 AM
Quote
Quote
Friendship/Devotion relationship feat: Same as Cheer, with a group of minions that keep bringing you back/giving you rerolls and the like.
Well that's actually intended to promote "kill the mooks first/simultaneously!".
That might be pretty hard considering they don't even have to be there. They can take turns using it while miles away in their homes since they don't even require being close or even seeing the fight.
Actually they do, since you can't take immediate actions if flat-footed.

Even with proximity rules, they could be standing about in plain sight among other civilians and watching the fight. Can't start a witch-hunt in the middle of a fight so you're mostly stuck with indiscriminate slaughter.
That's surprisingly appropriate for the mecha genre. Either make sure to evacuate the civilians or you need to butcher everything that moves just to be sure.

I don't see a way to stop abusing this that doesn't involve a cooldown between applications. One 2nd effect per round and one 3rd effect per minute or somesuch. There's certainly another ways to deal with it but as is it is way too easy. Or then everyone gets a hundred minion spammers and the fights never end.
If you have a hundred minion spammer that can you can customise the stats for, then it's pretty hard to end the fight even with no relationship feats.

But fair enough, nerfed the third options so that you can only use them if adjacent to your special one.

Quote
Random musings: I was thinking about removing energy progression and standardizing costs, since right now energy reserves scale pretty quickly but energy costs don't scale at all. Make energy work more like how arsenal costs work right now. Anyone has thoughts on it?
Tricky. Something to consider... would removing all extra reactor options be a bad thing? Or perhaps increasing the recovery cost of the maneuvers to make them harder to spam.
Getting more energy already increases the amount recovered every round, so having enough energy is still possible to those that invest in it while making it harder to manage for those who don't. Maybe coupled with lower energy gains if you want to make it harder to manage.
The maneuver's energy-based recovery otherwise has to be revamped with your suggested standardization. If you do bring it to every maneuver's recovery costing the same, however, you may have to bring back the readied maneuvers since the resource per level is no longer linked to their power (since having acces to everything known like a sorcerer is no longer limited by higher costs for strongest stuff).
I'd say go for standardization since many low-level maneuvers scale and having to get the costs to account for it (such as they do with psionic powers) is too much of a hassle.
Basic layout I have in my mind is something along the lines of:
-Base energy is 100. Some robots may have less or more but always on the same scale.
-You only recover 5 energy per round base.
-Arsenal options and super robot upgrades increase that by small increments.
-Maneuvers cost would remain the same. So a 9th level maneuver (45 energy) eats almost half your base energy while a 1st level maneuver (5 energy) can be spammed every round.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on October 24, 2016, 05:12:39 AM
But then how do I nova my energy reserves with 2-4 maneuvers in a single round!?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on October 24, 2016, 05:25:15 AM
Preventing nova of max-level maneuvers would be an intended effect.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on October 24, 2016, 06:49:31 AM
Well I'm just saying a base energy of 100 utterly murders the moon vanguard's recovery mechanic when the regen rate starts at 5 and sounds to barely increase beyond. Not to mention when combined with Main Weapon super upgrades and that each square of flight would then cost 5% of your total energy. Fly ten spaces and suddenly you're at half energy and you can almost forget being capable of actually moving more than a double move without dropping out of the sky like a rock and that's before counting energy costs of maneuvers and/or extra energy costs of maneuvers than also provide free action movement.

On the upside, it would incredibly devalue the necessity and overpoweredness of the Zeal Spirit  :smirk
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on October 24, 2016, 07:28:40 AM
Flight movement would be adjusted to 1 energy per 5 mu of course.

Moon Vanguard recovery actually pulls ahead before 5th level maneuvers. Low level ones would be dirt cheap to recover when you have 100 energy. Only by 6th-9th you need to pay more, and then you'll have 6+ maneuvers readied which don't need energy to be used the first time. And then  a Moon Vanguard would also have Overdrive System at least 2 times per day.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on October 24, 2016, 08:33:56 AM
If energy regen is that tight, it sounds like readied maneuvers are going to give you more opportunity to use even mid-level maneuvers. Let alone counters. Also moving, and in some scenarios normal attacks.

Also, reminder that two of the arsenal options take more than 100 energy per attack. :lmao
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on October 24, 2016, 11:22:06 AM
My only issue that I can see with the new size scaling is that it makes it a little awkward because you have to roll multiple die sizes on your weapon. But that's a minor gripe at best given what it fixes
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on October 24, 2016, 12:55:12 PM
Random musings: I was thinking about removing energy progression and standardizing costs, since right now energy reserves scale pretty quickly but energy costs don't scale at all. Make energy work more like how arsenal costs work right now. Anyone has thoughts on it?
Energy does need reworked by quite a bit. The weapons go from barely using it, with no notation if it's per hit/missed attack or per round for ambiguity too, to here is a 200 energy antimatter sword, so hope you saved up.

Racial abilities pass to the mecha.
So a Shifter piloting a Mech can grow claws?

Cheer/Fortune spirits: Might want to put a limit to it so that someone with, say, Leadership, do not get a huge amount of extra weapons/feats by training his horde and having weak mooks fed to them.
Good point, added non-stacking.
For the Phantasy Star campaign, given Leadership feeding is not something you'll agree with and how you banned using cost reduction to obtain more items than you should, how do you feel about using followers to feed you all their wealth so you can spend 159k on your character's gear when you should have a 110k limit?

No reach. It's kinda of a clunky mechanic to begin with and not really in the spirit of mecha.
You really have an anti-range stance here :p

That sounds good, added it to the Index. Thanks!
The change to +6d6 for Colossal should nerf a ton of the more recent figures.

I HATE RANGE!
*sigh*

POS bow vs uber optimized AC and you're like nah it's hit rate sucks. No kidding, it didn't spend anything on it's attack. And 20mu range? Actually with hide and wanting to hit 95% on the first attack it's 60mu, 100mu if you spend 150gp on a scope. But more importantly is the fact that these things are comparable which means there is no clear choice that players will ever pick. It's a shame through that Ranged already provokes AoOs, have penalties when shooting into melee, obstacle rules favor melee/flanking, and you purposely added a serve limitation on multi-round usage and reduced damage on top of that. Additionally you're little rant about how you should spend gold on cooler things than weapons is self-defeating becuase maybe I want to spend upgrade points on cool stuff to. But I bring this up because the only way Built-Ins can have all those penalties added is by taking Transform(tank) and also giving up Flight. Jesus, it's not like a melee opponent can't simply charge someone in the first place you don't need to screw Ranged over at every single step. Also Gear dependent? Hi Welcome to D&D and let's add a Mech that if you glue the hatch shut it will piss off a player far more than a disarmed weapon will because you've created a campiagn setting that's more dependant on items than the Power Rangers need morphers. :banghead

It basically just boils down to the whole "I hate you, this topic is a black hole, forget about it" part. SRW the board game includes Gundams which are primarily ranged combatants but I guess you're entirely focused on Mazinger Z or Getter Robo (which ever one is like no guns!). Then you're off thinking the action scene of the underdog shooting people to steal their guns to shoot more people is far more interesting than how the very media genre you're trying to mimic doesn't do that. They are badass robots and they get unique weapons/traits/decals, underdog weapon swapping is for the loser's crowning moment of achievement which only happens once. And do you know what the irony is? It's not that you can steal a lv7 gun, but no one is going to run around stealing guns in the first place like you imagine them to because your guns suck so bad the only thing PCs are going to steal is a melee weapon, if it's better, and keep it forever.

I feel you are mechanically pushing people towards one choice even through you claim you don't want that. I also feel like you pushing irrelevant themes that are not in the mimicked material. I also feel like the homebrew is all over the place and needs a ton of work with some ridiculously borked traits in it that give me stuff like off handed examples of seventy thousand damage to use as a point when I feel like it. But, you just don't want to hear about so w/e. I've lost my urge to give a fuck.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on October 24, 2016, 02:41:35 PM
I just realized I misremembered flight costs and they're already 1 per 5mu so my point is moot goodbye :v
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on October 25, 2016, 01:10:07 PM
Energy overhaul applied across the board. Let me know if I missed something.

Also most arsenal options got a bunch of built-in penalties.

If energy regen is that tight, it sounds like readied maneuvers are going to give you more opportunity to use even mid-level maneuvers. Let alone counters. Also moving, and in some scenarios normal attacks.

Also, reminder that two of the arsenal options take more than 100 energy per attack. :lmao

Yeah, weapon energy costs were also overhauled.

Racial abilities pass to the mecha.
So a Shifter piloting a Mech can grow claws?
Yes. Not sure if they're still worth it.

Cheer/Fortune spirits: Might want to put a limit to it so that someone with, say, Leadership, do not get a huge amount of extra weapons/feats by training his horde and having weak mooks fed to them.
Good point, added non-stacking.
For the Phantasy Star campaign, given Leadership feeding is not something you'll agree with and how you banned using cost reduction to obtain more items than you should, how do you feel about using followers to feed you all their wealth so you can spend 159k on your character's gear when you should have a 110k limit?
No.

No reach. It's kinda of a clunky mechanic to begin with and not really in the spirit of mecha.
You really have an anti-range stance here :p
The irony since reach weapons make it harder to 5-feet step away to fire safer.

POS bow vs uber optimized AC and you're like nah it's hit rate sucks. No kidding, it didn't spend anything on it's attack. And 20mu range? Actually with hide and wanting to hit 95% on the first attack it's 60mu, 100mu if you spend 150gp on a scope. But more importantly is the fact that these things are comparable which means there is no clear choice that players will ever pick. It's a shame through that Ranged already provokes AoOs, have penalties when shooting into melee, obstacle rules favor melee/flanking, and you purposely added a serve limitation on multi-round usage and reduced damage on top of that. Additionally you're little rant about how you should spend gold on cooler things than weapons is self-defeating becuase maybe I want to spend upgrade points on cool stuff to. But I bring this up because the only way Built-Ins can have all those penalties added is by taking Transform(tank) and also giving up Flight. Jesus, it's not like a melee opponent can't simply charge someone in the first place you don't need to screw Ranged over at every single step. Also Gear dependent? Hi Welcome to D&D and let's add a Mech that if you glue the hatch shut it will piss off a player far more than a disarmed weapon will because you've created a campiagn setting that's more dependant on items than the Power Rangers need morphers. :banghead
Well if it's one of the reasons I added the tac feats that allow a super to summon their ride and the real to call mook machines that they can commandeer.


It basically just boils down to the whole "I hate you, this topic is a black hole, forget about it" part. SRW the board game includes Gundams which are primarily ranged combatants but I guess you're entirely focused on Mazinger Z or Getter Robo (which ever one is like no guns!).
Double irony since Getter has a machine gun and Mazinkaizer SKL dual-wields pistols.

Gundams on the other hand get more than their share of kills in melee. Heck, the more recent gundam animes, Iron Blooded Orphans, Unicorn and Thunderbolt, all have their climatic battles end with "Drive me closer, I want to hit them with my sword/fist."

And the only recorded instance of a Zaku II (aka basic "evil grunt") defeating a Gundam was by a pilot managing to get close enough to hit them with their heat axe. Because the Zaku II's basic machine gun and even the rocket launcher never managed to do anything more than scratch a Gundam's paint even when wielded by named ace pilots.

Then you're off thinking the action scene of the underdog shooting people to steal their guns to shoot more people is far more interesting than how the very media genre you're trying to mimic doesn't do that. They are badass robots and they get unique weapons/traits/decals, underdog weapon swapping is for the loser's crowning moment of achievement which only happens once. And do you know what the irony is? It's not that you can steal a lv7 gun, but no one is going to run around stealing guns in the first place like you imagine them to because your guns suck so bad the only thing PCs are going to steal is a melee weapon, if it's better, and keep it forever.

I feel you are mechanically pushing people towards one choice even through you claim you don't want that. I also feel like you pushing irrelevant themes that are not in the mimicked material. I also feel like the homebrew is all over the place and needs a ton of work with some ridiculously borked traits in it that give me stuff like off handed examples of seventy thousand damage to use as a point when I feel like it. But, you just don't want to hear about so w/e. I've lost my urge to give a fuck.

Indeed, I'm not that interested in listening about how the secondary arsenal weapons that super robots get on a delayed progression to start with may or may not be less efficient that bizzarre combinations of other weapon creation rules.

I'm however quite interested in fixing clearly broken stuff like the broken maneuvers/stances and crazy weapon size scaling mentioned, which I've done so, and you indeed don't give a fuck for that, although you gave a lot of fucks rambling about wanting to make melee obsolete by mooks being able to focus fire the PCs at mega range with easily accessible uber guns (which is kinda what happened at the first battle of the campaign, third irony), and you were still editing your post hours later. If you had ever given a single fuck about fair mecha ranged combat, you would've worried first about the base ranged weapons on the real robots, not the optional arsenal ones.

In related news, non-mecha weapons now deal minimum damage against mecha and vice-versa.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on October 25, 2016, 01:31:17 PM

Double irony since Getter has a machine gun and Mazinkaizer SKL dual-wields pistols.

Gundams on the other hand get more than their share of kills in melee. Heck, the more recent gundam animes, Iron Blooded Orphans, Unicorn and Thunderbolt, all have their climatic battles end with "Drive me closer, I want to hit them with my sword/fist."

And the only recorded instance of a Zaku II (aka basic "evil grunt") defeating a Gundam was by a pilot managing to get close enough to hit them with their heat axe. Because the Zaku II's basic machine gun and even the rocket launcher never managed to do anything more than scratch a Gundam's paint even when wielded by named ace pilots.


I think the point is that you can't give Getter its machine gun, nor Mazinkaiser SKL its pistols, nor Dancouga any of its multitude of guns, etc....
And while sure, Gundams have some awesome melee....Unicorn's Beam Magnum is much stronger than any of its melee weapons, and the majority of lead gundams (barring Exia/00/Quan[T], Barbatos, and the GBF leads) are primarily ranged. Wing's Buster Rifle, Zeta's Hi Mega Launcher, Double Zeta's High Mega Cannon, F91's VSBRs, Nu's Fin Funnels (which are admittedly available), Freedom/Strike Freedom's absurd quantity of ranged weapons...
If anything, if you want to show those awesome Gundam finales, you should make ranged strong, and then make Sunder a powerful option, because that's what usually happens.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on October 25, 2016, 03:55:34 PM
The irony since reach weapons make it harder to 5-feet step away to fire safer.
That's not how you use the word irony.

Irony is counter to expectations or what is appropriate. Since my stance is Ranged=Melee, the inherent flaws in Ranged that were designed to make it equal to it are expected and appropriate. An example of ironic be about how you think resources should be spent on cool stuff and PCs should not be gear dependent.
Well if it's one of the reasons I added the tac feats that allow a super to summon their ride and the real to call mook machines that they can commandeer.
But you require PCs to spend their Feat Slot resources in order to lessen the threats of something taking their required gear away.

Instead of irony you should use coincidentally, like this:
Quote
Double irony since Getter has a machine gun and Mazinkaizer SKL dual-wields pistols.
So coincidentally, you're crapping on all three of the franchises instead of one.

Language aside I think we all figured out in your last post what your definition of fix means. Like when I pointed out ranged arsenal was behind every other option so you "fixed" it by widening the gap. And now here recently you're newest patch was to remove the option to use gold as a means, so the only semi-decent ranged weapon is obtained by spending a couple dozen upgrade points on a Super Robot's Tank Mode, at least until you nerf that some more too. And somehow, all this time you've known Real Pilot's ranged choice are even worse and you still don't care. Instead the only thing you want to focus on is how I didn't memorize all thirty ambiguous and self cross-referencing threads so you can claim I don't really care.

Well, once upon a time I did care enough to crunch over a dozen numbers that you never cared to do.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on October 25, 2016, 04:06:09 PM
Something I've just noticed. With the energy rework, you didn't change the cost on Funnels, so now it's even harder to use 'em effectively. I dunno if this is intentional or not.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on October 25, 2016, 04:37:14 PM
Eh, irony can be used in so many ways nowadays. Isn't language evolution fun?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on October 25, 2016, 09:08:18 PM
About the Energy revamp

In case it wasn't meant to be, the multiclassing rules still grant increases to energy per class level.
The Einst Queen infiltrator has scaling energy as well (including its multiclassing options) along with the old energy recovery (though it'd be more limited in that department).
The Super Pilot still has energy increases with its super upgrades (though that may be supposed to be an alternative to Arsenal options).
I'll update the Engineer based on what seems to be the norm between the two across their progression.

In case that the Real Pilot and Super Pilot are meant to have energy increase options, the Ship Captain is then very limited in that department; I've a hard time imagining it doing much in a fight with its main cannon costing 50 energy and trying to use its maneuvers on top of it all. Along with flying around. It has enough arsenal space to have one reactor quality or more energy, but with the default recovery being at 5 per round a reactor is almost mandatory to do anything.
For the Main Cannon, maybe it'd be cool to have its energy cost be based on its number of base damage die, you could lower its damage for lower energy costs, which could lead to 'charging the lazzer' for a max-power shot.

The Main weapon now costing a whoopin' 10 energy per attack per pick of the upgrade suddenly makes it anything but a main weapon. It suddenly becomes the one you try to use the most sparingly since it empties your energy reserve. Except perhaps for a heavy weapon for maximum effect on multiple targets with a single attack. With 3 picks making it 30 energy per attack... I'll just note I didn't consider the second and third pick of Main to be worth their energy cost and now that the energy pool is reduced along with the energy increases, I'm not sure why anyone would consider them except perhaps to combine with a spirit/effect that guarantees a critical hit... M'yeah.

Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on October 25, 2016, 11:07:50 PM

Double irony since Getter has a machine gun and Mazinkaizer SKL dual-wields pistols.

Gundams on the other hand get more than their share of kills in melee. Heck, the more recent gundam animes, Iron Blooded Orphans, Unicorn and Thunderbolt, all have their climatic battles end with "Drive me closer, I want to hit them with my sword/fist."

And the only recorded instance of a Zaku II (aka basic "evil grunt") defeating a Gundam was by a pilot managing to get close enough to hit them with their heat axe. Because the Zaku II's basic machine gun and even the rocket launcher never managed to do anything more than scratch a Gundam's paint even when wielded by named ace pilots.


I think the point is that you can't give Getter its machine gun, nor Mazinkaiser SKL its pistols, nor Dancouga any of its multitude of guns, etc....
But you can, just pick arsenal and take your picks. Sure they're not going to be boss-finishers, but that was never their purpose to begin with. Mazinkaiser/Getter/Dancounga use guns to either clear away mooks that aren't worth spending energy on or wear down bigger enemies at range before getting close enough for rip and tear.

And while sure, Gundams have some awesome melee....Unicorn's Beam Magnum is much stronger than any of its melee weapons, and the majority of lead gundams (barring Exia/00/Quan[T], Barbatos, and the GBF leads) are primarily ranged. Wing's Buster Rifle, Zeta's Hi Mega Launcher, Double Zeta's High Mega Cannon, F91's VSBRs, Nu's Fin Funnels (which are admittedly available), Freedom/Strike Freedom's absurd quantity of ranged weapons...
If anything, if you want to show those awesome Gundam finales, you should make ranged strong, and then make Sunder a powerful option, because that's what usually happens.
Remind me, what gundam series had the big bad finished by one of the supposedly super ranged weapons?

(click to show/hide)

Main point is, even in the gundam series ranged weapons are mostly for clearing away nameless faceless mooks, while important enemies shrugg off all sorts of guns like a boss before getting stabbed about 99% of the time.

As for sundering, yes it's a common theme in giant robot shows, however from a gaming perspective, it would mean players pretty much need to go restock to a base after every battle to replace destroyed weapons. That's why I added the Disarming property, allowing you to remove weapons that can be easily replaced after the battle is over.

Although I'm all ears, how would such an "easy sunder" system work? First guy to win initiative blows up the other dude's biggest weapon and whoever goes second is left running a losing battle as both their damage potential and HP have been crippled and they can't recover their damage potential? Or just make ranged weapons super easy to sunder while melee ones are more durable?

Something I've just noticed. With the energy rework, you didn't change the cost on Funnels, so now it's even harder to use 'em effectively. I dunno if this is intentional or not.
Missed it, standardized to 5 energy per round, thanks!

About the Energy revamp

In case it wasn't meant to be, the multiclassing rules still grant increases to energy per class level.
The Einst Queen infiltrator has scaling energy as well (including its multiclassing options) along with the old energy recovery (though it'd be more limited in that department).
The Super Pilot still has energy increases with its super upgrades (though that may be supposed to be an alternative to Arsenal options).
Thanks as well, removed the multiclassing leftovers and updated Einst queen as well.
Super robot energy upgrade remaining is intended has supers usually have more energy. The bonus has been halved though.

In case that the Real Pilot and Super Pilot are meant to have energy increase options, the Ship Captain is then very limited in that department; I've a hard time imagining it doing much in a fight with its main cannon costing 50 energy and trying to use its maneuvers on top of it all. Along with flying around. It has enough arsenal space to have one reactor quality or more energy, but with the default recovery being at 5 per round a reactor is almost mandatory to do anything.
For the Main Cannon, maybe it'd be cool to have its energy cost be based on its number of base damage die, you could lower its damage for lower energy costs, which could lead to 'charging the lazzer' for a max-power shot.
Reduced energy beam cannon cost to 15. "Charging my lazzors" is something that's already represented by using either spirits/maneuvers or the super robot's upgrade.

The Main weapon now costing a whoopin' 10 energy per attack per pick of the upgrade suddenly makes it anything but a main weapon. It suddenly becomes the one you try to use the most sparingly since it empties your energy reserve. Except perhaps for a heavy weapon for maximum effect on multiple targets with a single attack. With 3 picks making it 30 energy per attack... I'll just note I didn't consider the second and third pick of Main to be worth their energy cost and now that the energy pool is reduced along with the energy increases, I'm not sure why anyone would consider them except perhaps to combine with a spirit/effect that guarantees a critical hit... M'yeah.
Reduced energy cost to 5 per increase.

Still, as pointed out earlier one of the purposes is to promote the use of different weapons. So a gundam uses their vulkans to clear away minor nuissances, the beam rifle to shoot down those half-decent zakus and pulls out the beam saber for big baddies. Sometimes he carried around his own rocket launcher or a hammer and sometimes he just tears stuff apart with its hands.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on October 25, 2016, 11:11:49 PM
Jeebus, Main Weapon costs 10 energy per rank per swing now!? So rank 2 is 20 per swing then? Fck that you could literally never use it. And God help you if you try to main weapon a twin linked weapon for TWF. You already have to pay double energy, basically, to use maneuvers with a main weapon when that maneuver grants multiple attacks. Gosh.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on October 25, 2016, 11:29:23 PM
Main weapon it's been updated to 5 energy per rank. Base you can get 20 swings. Rank 2 you can get 10 swings and rank 3 you can get 6 swings. Before max energy upgrades.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on October 26, 2016, 12:58:57 AM
That's....wow that's terrible. How is that a Main Weapon now? Your main weapon is one that you always use the most and can always rely on. That on top of the incredibly reduced max energy values and the even more butchered energy regen and the awesome amount of methods the SRW system has for getting additional actions and attacks and move above the normal, all of which also need energy expended on them on top of the general maneuver costs and I'm starting to find this overhaul unplayable in any sort of casual means and that's just in regards to the new rules for Energy ~.~

This is going to be like completely making a new character soon when the level up comes around in Phantasy Star.....


I get that weapon swapping may be a sort of thing in mecha animes, but in D&D you generally have little need or want to bother switching weapons except when one stops working or when you have another that'd work better on a particular opponent. I get we're trying to emulate mecha animes here, but we're also D&D at the core of it with all this  :-\
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on October 26, 2016, 01:22:02 AM
As for sundering, yes it's a common theme in giant robot shows, however from a gaming perspective, it would mean players pretty much need to go restock to a base after every battle to replace destroyed weapons. That's why I added the Disarming property, allowing you to remove weapons that can be easily replaced after the battle is over.

Although I'm all ears, how would such an "easy sunder" system work? First guy to win initiative blows up the other dude's biggest weapon and whoever goes second is left running a losing battle as both their damage potential and HP have been crippled and they can't recover their damage potential? Or just make ranged weapons super easy to sunder while melee ones are more durable?

I'm not really sure. the first thing that comes to mind is that sundering is easier vs low HP targets, so you get that whole "shooting at each other until the ranged weapons get blown up" effect that you see in so many gundam shows.

Also, while final bosses rarely get scrapped by ranged weapons, that doesn't change the fact that their first resort is ranged weapons. That means they must have some reason to stay at range even if they could more easily destroy their targets in melee. That's...not really represented here. With things like Engine Overload, it's trivial to get into melee on round one, and with melee weapons so much better, there's very little reason not to. The exceptions are the built in weapons on some reals...but of the main gundams, the only ones that primarily rely on built in weapons are Freedom/Strike Freedom and Shining/God. Usually it's a rifle or something that any suit could pick up. This is all in the series of course. In the Super Robot Wars games that I'm fairly sure we're all trying to mimic, the list of lead gundams that have melee ultimate moves is: Zeta, the 00 leads, and the G Gundam leads. Every other series lead has, as its strongest attack, a ranged weapon. Double Zeta? High Mega Cannon. Nu? Fin Funnels. Wing/Wing Zero? Buster/Twin Buster Rifle. X/Double X? Satellite Cannons (and even excluding those, their strongest attacks are their beam rifles). Crossbone? Full weapon combination, and barring that, the Peacock Smasher. Strike is iffy because striker packs, but the Agni is typically the strongest of its weapons. Freedom/Strike Freedom? Full Burst mode. Turn A is Moonlight Butterfly of course, but barring that, it's the beam rifle again! Sure, Zeta's is the Waverider Crash, Setsuna is a sword nut, and Domon is a crazy martial artist, but most leads use ranged as their strongest attacks in super robot wars, and that's not something you can do here. (There's also the issue of no vaguely generic reals available to do anything other than an OG campaign, but that's something that the GM is presumably supposed to come up with)
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on October 26, 2016, 08:35:59 AM
Actually, Turn A's second best attack in the games is usually the good old Gundam Hammer and at least in SRWZ he has a twin beam combo between that and Moonlight Butterfly making the rifle the third go-to choice. And at least in SRW J the meteor Freedom's true ultimate attack is a giant beam sword combo with the meteor Justice, while the old strike's most damaging module was the giant sword.

But I get your point, so I've added a new weapon property, Volatile. It gives a 50% chance of the weapon going boom when the mecha suffers damage or they roll a natural 1 on the attack roll, but you can't lose more than 1 volatile weapon each round this way. Added a bunch of new ranged Arsenal weapons whose names may or may not appear familiar with the Volatile property but otherwise have the highest damage values at each tier.

Also added Generic Universal Neo Dynamic Assault Mobile Suits to the real pilot, no built-in weapons or special abilities, but bigger arsenal space, need to spend at least 25% of it on weapons.

That's....wow that's terrible. How is that a Main Weapon now? Your main weapon is one that you always use the most and can always rely on. That on top of the incredibly reduced max energy values and the even more butchered energy regen and the awesome amount of methods the SRW system has for getting additional actions and attacks and move above the normal, all of which also need energy expended on them on top of the general maneuver costs and I'm starting to find this overhaul unplayable in any sort of casual means and that's just in regards to the new rules for Energy ~.~

This is going to be like completely making a new character soon when the level up comes around in Phantasy Star.....


I get that weapon swapping may be a sort of thing in mecha animes, but in D&D you generally have little need or want to bother switching weapons except when one stops working or when you have another that'd work better on a particular opponent. I get we're trying to emulate mecha animes here, but we're also D&D at the core of it with all this  :-\
Ok, removed the main weapon energy cost completely.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Rekmond on October 26, 2016, 10:31:46 AM
Ugh, I get that this system apparently needed a lot of rework but dang. I only got done making my Moon Vanguard the other week.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on October 26, 2016, 10:34:29 AM
But I get your point, so I've added a new weapon property, Volatile. It gives a 50% chance of the weapon going boom when the mecha suffers damage or they roll a natural 1 on the attack roll, but you can't lose more than 1 volatile weapon each round this way. Added a bunch of new ranged Arsenal weapons whose names may or may not appear familiar with the Volatile property but otherwise have the highest damage values at each tier.

Also added Generic Universal Neo Dynamic Assault Mobile Suits to the real pilot, no built-in weapons or special abilities, but bigger arsenal space, need to spend at least 25% of it on weapons.

Awesome! This fixes pretty much all of the issues I had with this :)


That said, I just noticed that Machinery Warriors still get EN scaling with level. Is this intentional? (I could see it being intentional, because they're supposed to have super endurance, but I want to make sure)
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on October 27, 2016, 01:33:57 AM
Speaking of the Machinery Warrior, I've always wondered; since both the pilot and the mecha gain the regeneration quality, if an android uses One with the Machine, doesn't that technically grant a double regeneration effect to the mecha, (the regen of the mecha itself + the regen of the pilot) since effects that heal either heal the mecha?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on October 27, 2016, 05:11:30 AM
Added Showtime Star, the Gun Maniac tac feat plus Cyber Newtype, Innovade and Coordinator feats.

But I get your point, so I've added a new weapon property, Volatile. It gives a 50% chance of the weapon going boom when the mecha suffers damage or they roll a natural 1 on the attack roll, but you can't lose more than 1 volatile weapon each round this way. Added a bunch of new ranged Arsenal weapons whose names may or may not appear familiar with the Volatile property but otherwise have the highest damage values at each tier.

Also added Generic Universal Neo Dynamic Assault Mobile Suits to the real pilot, no built-in weapons or special abilities, but bigger arsenal space, need to spend at least 25% of it on weapons.

Awesome! This fixes pretty much all of the issues I had with this :)


That said, I just noticed that Machinery Warriors still get EN scaling with level. Is this intentional? (I could see it being intentional, because they're supposed to have super endurance, but I want to make sure)

Yes, but was too high, lowered it down.

Speaking of the Machinery Warrior, I've always wondered; since both the pilot and the mecha gain the regeneration quality, if an android uses One with the Machine, doesn't that technically grant a double regeneration effect to the mecha, (the regen of the mecha itself + the regen of the pilot) since effects that heal either heal the mecha?

No, they're still separate HP pools (hence the note about when the mecha takes damage, so does the android), clarified.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on October 27, 2016, 11:14:08 AM
The Android's One with the Machine then suddenly becomes a penalty and a terrible thing to use, since every damage inflicted to the mecha hurts the android but the heals to the mecha doesn't heal the android. The ability effectively has every damage suffered by the mecha count as critical hits that also hurt the mecha. It worked only because the heals healed the android as well, now the ability only cripples the whole.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on October 27, 2016, 11:41:06 AM
One with the machine always worked because it allows you to buff your Mecha's max HP, making it able to tank more damage before going down. Otherwise Androids end as magical reverse entropy holes that reward you for stuffing your cockpit with mooks with cure light wounds wands and other healing multiplier shenigans.

Kinda strange coming from you who's always pointing out how raw multipliers are bad.

Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on October 27, 2016, 01:48:17 PM
I don't think you get what I mean.
The way it works right now, an Android under OwtM would keep both its own HP and the Mecha's separate.
But damage suffered by the mecha is also dealt to the android. Though healing to the mecha doesn't go to the android and healing to the android doesn't go to the mecha.

Android has 100 hp and uses OwtM. The mecha receives 50 damage. Android also receives 50 damage.
Mecha heals 30 damage with a spirit, android doesn't heal. Mecha receives 60 damage, so does the android.
The mecha still has enough hp to still be up and running, but the android got killed.
It is like every attack deal critical hits. For it to work, it would have to stop the android from suffering the damage as well or get the healing too. Otherwise the android will indeed need a horde of mooks healing it all the time to stop his mecha from kill it because it cannot keep up with its healing. Before they shared the the same HP and if the mecha was destroyed the android died. Now it just makes it easier to kill the pilot.

If the issue is heals on the android pilot healing the mecha, that's something else that can be prevented by itself. The mecha could keep damaging/healing the android as a one-way street. Damage specifically done to the android within the mecha similarly wouldn't affect the mecha.
It better distributes the risks of getting killed in the mecha instead of just benefiting from an extra pool of HP.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on October 27, 2016, 02:24:27 PM
Ugh, I get that this system apparently needed a lot of rework but dang. I only got done making my Moon Vanguard the other week.
Yeah but it helps when you don't do stuff like this.
Friendship/Devotion relationship feat: Same as Cheer, with a group of minions that keep bringing you back/giving you rerolls and the like.
Well that's actually intended to promote "kill the mooks first/simultaneously!".
One with the machine always worked because it allows you to buff your Mecha's max HP, making it able to tank more damage before going down. Otherwise Androids end as magical reverse entropy holes that reward you for stuffing your cockpit with mooks with cure light wounds wands and other healing multiplier shenigans.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on October 27, 2016, 07:42:03 PM
I don't think you get what I mean.
The way it works right now, an Android under OwtM would keep both its own HP and the Mecha's separate.
But damage suffered by the mecha is also dealt to the android. Though healing to the mecha doesn't go to the android and healing to the android doesn't go to the mecha.

Android has 100 hp and uses OwtM. The mecha receives 50 damage. Android also receives 50 damage.
Mecha heals 30 damage with a spirit, android doesn't heal. Mecha receives 60 damage, so does the android.
The mecha still has enough hp to still be up and running, but the android got killed.
It is like every attack deal critical hits. For it to work, it would have to stop the android from suffering the damage as well or get the healing too. Otherwise the android will indeed need a horde of mooks healing it all the time to stop his mecha from kill it because it cannot keep up with its healing. Before they shared the the same HP and if the mecha was destroyed the android died. Now it just makes it easier to kill the pilot.

Only if you're using and abusing self-healing effects.

But if you are not making such a build , it's a net gain while the mecha lasts, in particular when you take in account the mecha auto-ejects the pilot when it reaches 0 HP.

Promoting a mecha build that doesn't rely on self-healing? Crazy, I know. Whoever heard of mechas that can't reconstruct themselves on the fly? It's almost as several of them are supposed to be inorganic machines.  :rolleyes

And if you want a self-healing android build that badly, that's what Machinery Warrior is there for.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on October 27, 2016, 07:56:25 PM
No I think you're missing what Anomander is saying Os. In his example, without any self-healing tricks, the Mecha outlived the pilot. One With the Machine doesn't help anything if both the Mecha and the pilot are taking the same damage from every attack the Mecha takes. A pooled HP pool doesn't make the Mecha last longer if they both take the same damage and are tracked separately.

If the pilot only has 50 HP and the Mecha has 100 HP, and OWtM is used to add the pilots 50 to the Mecha 100, but then the Mecha gets hit for 60 damage and both the Mecha and the pilot have to take the full 60 damage each, now the Mecha is at 40 HP and the pilot is at -10 HP and dead after just one attack.


That's what I read anyways.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on October 27, 2016, 08:23:47 PM
Ketaro, you're the one misreading things here.

First One with the Machine doesn't add HP together, it makes the mecha's max hp equal to the android's max HP. So you should never use it if your mecha has more HP than your android.

Second, Anomander specifically used healing on his example. Since the healing's isn't magically multiplied, if you try to abuse healing effects on the mecha's boosted HP pool, the android pilot themselves cannot keep up if you're making an uber self-healing build.

However if you're not (ab)using self-healing effects, then it becomes a moot point since the mecha will reach 0 HP at the same time as the android pilot. But was able to tank more damage if the Android had higher HP than the mecha in the first place.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on October 27, 2016, 11:23:48 PM
Weird I don't see that even after it being pointed out  :lmao
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on October 28, 2016, 12:22:50 AM
Ketaro, you're the one misreading things here.

First One with the Machine doesn't add HP together, it makes the mecha's max hp equal to the android's max HP. So you should never use it if your mecha has more HP than your android.

Second, Anomander specifically used healing on his example. Since the healing's isn't magically multiplied, if you try to abuse healing effects on the mecha's boosted HP pool, the android pilot themselves cannot keep up if you're making an uber self-healing build.

However if you're not (ab)using self-healing effects, then it becomes a moot point since the mecha will reach 0 HP at the same time as the android pilot. But was able to tank more damage if the Android had higher HP than the mecha in the first place.

Doesn't that make self healing spirits pointless though? Like, what's the point of Guts if it doesn't actually provide any effective healing?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on October 28, 2016, 01:28:28 AM
Guts is quite effective healing as long as you're not One with the Machine, in which case the pilot does not suffer damage inflicted to the mecha.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on October 28, 2016, 03:40:35 AM
I was just looking at the super robot upgrades, and the "Supporting" upgrade kinda confuses me. who exactly does it provide the bonus to? its pilot? an adjacent allied mech?
(also, the "Sentient" upgrade and "Supporting" both reference the super robot's own level. Is that the pilot's level?)
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on October 28, 2016, 04:35:15 AM
Quote
But if you are not making such a build , it's a net gain while the mecha lasts, in particular when you take in account the mecha auto-ejects the pilot when it reaches 0 HP.
That wouldn't work well. The android would normally die before the mecha breaks or at the same time, at best. It won't get to use the auto-eject.
Not using OwtM gives your own HP + the HP of the mecha before you die, since when the mecha is down you're ejected. An android with OwtM has only his own HP and doesn't get a free escape with the auto-eject if there's an attack that would kill it.
You get a mecha that has a more HP than the norm (if the android invests big in his own HP score, which he has no choice to do if he doesn't want to have one less ability) but you die faster in it.
Even without heals a critical hit on a mecha inflicts more damage to the android than it would normally receive.
If somehow the mecha is destroyed and the android inside is still alive, it would be in a much worse shape than another pilot.

Quote
Promoting a mecha build that doesn't rely on self-healing? Crazy, I know. Whoever heard of mechas that can't reconstruct themselves on the fly? It's almost as several of them are supposed to be inorganic machines.  :rolleyes
Your reasoning was that you didn't want to encourage mooks healing the android to save the mecha. You just have to prevent heals on the android from affecting the mecha. Now you're still encouraging mooks to heal the android within so that it can keep up with the mecha's heals.
A PC that doesn't have any way to heal his mecha, himself or by an ally, is highly unlikely (they'll likely get at least 1 spirit to heal). Mostly considering that without healing a mecha will have a hard time being used through multiple encounters until it gets back home for long repairs.
In-combat healing is also rather common in DnD all around, if only from a dedicated healer. With this campaign setting giving tons of means to dish out big numbers for damage, this is no less the case. Sure, an android could use Guts while not in OwtM, but then if it has Guts why even bother with OwtM.

Otherwise, it could also return to the mecha using the android's HP like it did before and the mecha being destroyed if the android dies, then add the effect that the android piloting the mecha is targeted as if it was the mecha itself and so can no longer be affected by effects that wouldn't affect the mecha, which would prevent any extra method of healing and buffs from within the cockpit that isn't available to any other mecha (and prevent most buffers in the cockpit from affecting the pilot to buff the mecha). It also wouldn't benefit from regeneration twice off Machinery Warrior since multiple regeneration effects already do not stack and wouldn't be applied to two different targets to combine the effect.

Quote
And if you want a self-healing android build that badly, that's what Machinery Warrior is there for.
For now I'm interested in the android becoming one with the machine properly. I could have made a stronger build without the android race to start with but I liked the idea of One with the Machine for my concept and I have so much more stuff to work with now.
Machinery Warrior starts at level 11. Bit late for the android to start trying to keep up with an healed mecha so that's out of the question in campaigns in the lower levels. I'll probably level dip in it all the same, but not for the regeneration, which'll be redundant in my build anyway.


Born to Fight feat
The arsenal surge for Mega Booster and TROMBE! do not have a duration.

Innovade feat
Is there supposed to be a limit to how many mechas can be piloted by this? You can fit quite a few in 20 feet plus 5 feet per Pilot level and even more if you use the Einst Queen Infiltrator trick to turn that range to mecha scale.
Also, if a mecha/machine becomes unattended within range of two Innovades, which one controls it? An opposed charisma check, perhaps?
Oddly, the benefit feels like something machines should be good at too, despite it being normally a 'human' thing. Androids are bad at it though since they can't use charisma well.

Showtime Star
Pretty cool. One More Time only covers the cost of the weapon, right? Not the maneuver that triggers it. At least that's what seems to be intended the way it is presented. Very powerful and maybe not too much so as long as it happens to only one attack and not all of them, if a maneuver offers a bunch of shots.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on October 28, 2016, 09:34:14 AM
I was just looking at the super robot upgrades, and the "Supporting" upgrade kinda confuses me. who exactly does it provide the bonus to? its pilot? an adjacent allied mech?
(also, the "Sentient" upgrade and "Supporting" both reference the super robot's own level. Is that the pilot's level?)
Pilot on all cases, clarified.


Quote
But if you are not making such a build , it's a net gain while the mecha lasts, in particular when you take in account the mecha auto-ejects the pilot when it reaches 0 HP.
That wouldn't work well. The android would normally die before the mecha breaks or at the same time, at best. It won't get to use the auto-eject.
Not using OwtM gives your own HP + the HP of the mecha before you die, since when the mecha is down you're ejected. An android with OwtM has only his own HP and doesn't get a free escape with the auto-eject if there's an attack that would kill it.
You get a mecha that has a more HP than the norm (if the android invests big in his own HP score, which he has no choice to do if he doesn't want to have one less ability) but you die faster in it.
Even without heals a critical hit on a mecha inflicts more damage to the android than it would normally receive.
If somehow the mecha is destroyed and the android inside is still alive, it would be in a much worse shape than another pilot.
Good point on critical hits, added clause for that.

Although it's fine to don't use all your multiple racial abilities if you don't want to. Not all elves walk around with swords. Not all halflings specialize in thrown weapons. Not all dwarves decide to only fight giants and goblinoids.

Quote
Promoting a mecha build that doesn't rely on self-healing? Crazy, I know. Whoever heard of mechas that can't reconstruct themselves on the fly? It's almost as several of them are supposed to be inorganic machines.  :rolleyes
Your reasoning was that you didn't want to encourage mooks healing the android to save the mecha. You just have to prevent heals on the android from affecting the mecha. Now you're still encouraging mooks to heal the android within so that it can keep up with the mecha's heals.
A PC that doesn't have any way to heal his mecha, himself or by an ally, is highly unlikely (they'll likely get at least 1 spirit to heal). Mostly considering that without healing a mecha will have a hard time being used through multiple encounters until it gets back home for long repairs.
Ship Veteran Mechanics, or the default one hour per 10% of HP repair.

In-combat healing is also rather common in DnD all around, if only from a dedicated healer. With this campaign setting giving tons of means to dish out big numbers for damage, this is no less the case. Sure, an android could use Guts while not in OwtM, but then if it has Guts why even bother with OwtM.
Depends on who you ask. A lot of the so-called CO community preaches the exact opposite, that in-combat healing is a waste of time because you could be killing stuff instead. If you do everything well you won't even need to heal in the first place, and once the enemies are defeated you can heal at your leisure. Heck, my second D&D group that was as noob as they come and still had a rule of "only stop to heal for stablizing bleeding allies, and even then if they're about to die". And very few people like playing the healbot.

Otherwise, it could also return to the mecha using the android's HP like it did before and the mecha being destroyed if the android dies, then add the effect that the android piloting the mecha is targeted as if it was the mecha itself and so can no longer be affected by effects that wouldn't affect the mecha, which would prevent any extra method of healing and buffs from within the cockpit that isn't available to any other mecha (and prevent most buffers in the cockpit from affecting the pilot to buff the mecha). It also wouldn't benefit from regeneration twice off Machinery Warrior since multiple regeneration effects already do not stack and wouldn't be applied to two different targets to combine the effect.
It never worked like that. If anything the wording wasn't clear enough, silly me that by writing that failed to predict that writing that damage to the mecha applies to the android can actually mean that everything under the stars applied to the mecha would also apply to the android.

Quote
And if you want a self-healing android build that badly, that's what Machinery Warrior is there for.
For now I'm interested in the android becoming one with the machine properly. I could have made a stronger build without the android race to start with
Indeed, you could've played a kobold and went pun-pun.

"I could've made a more OP character" isn't much of a valid argument in D&D.

but I liked the idea of One with the Machine for my concept and I have so much more stuff to work with now.Machinery Warrior starts at level 11. Bit late for the android to start trying to keep up with an healed mecha so that's out of the question in campaigns in the lower levels. I'll probably level dip in it all the same, but not for the regeneration, which'll be redundant in my build anyway.
Suit yourself, just let me make a note to start keeping careful track of your character's HP in case there are any more misunderstandings.

Born to Fight feat
The arsenal surge for Mega Booster and TROMBE! do not have a duration.

Innovade feat
Is there supposed to be a limit to how many mechas can be piloted by this? You can fit quite a few in 20 feet plus 5 feet per Pilot level and even more if you use the Einst Queen Infiltrator trick to turn that range to mecha scale.
Also, if a mecha/machine becomes unattended within range of two Innovades, which one controls it? An opposed charisma check, perhaps?
Oddly, the benefit feels like something machines should be good at too, despite it being normally a 'human' thing. Androids are bad at it though since they can't use charisma well.

Showtime Star
Pretty cool. One More Time only covers the cost of the weapon, right? Not the maneuver that triggers it. At least that's what seems to be intended the way it is presented. Very powerful and maybe not too much so as long as it happens to only one attack and not all of them, if a maneuver offers a bunch of shots.
-Fixed.
-If you're already piloting a mecha, then you can't pilot another even if it's unattended just as if you were inside the mecha you're already piloting. If the mecha is being controlled by another Innovade, then it doesn't count as unattended. Also Innovades were originally meat bags machine slaves organic terminals for a super computer, so lack of android synergy is intended.
-Thanks. Yes, maneuver paid apart, limited the free pass to one shot per weapon.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on October 28, 2016, 11:15:29 AM
Is it intentional that Gate to Nowhere, Showtime Star, Cyber Newtype, Innovade, and Coordinator aren't [Pilot] Feats? The former two especially, as they require Pilot Levels

Also, it feels weird to me that Cyber Newtype doesn't let you use funnels, what with that being pretty much the whole point of cyber newtypes (not entirely, but you get what I mean)

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Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on October 29, 2016, 02:35:02 AM
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A lot of the so-called CO community preaches the exact opposite, that in-combat healing is a waste of time because you could be killing stuff instead.
That's not as relevant in a system that doesn't consume actions to heal.

Quote
And very few people like playing the healbot.
Ah? Being the healer is fun. Mechas don't need a dedicated healer much, though, at least until the heal options are revamped as well. Pilots are another matter though.

Quote
Although it's fine to don't use all your multiple racial abilities if you don't want to.
Sure, or get a group of mook healers to make it viable. Anyway, all that to say that looking at OwtM I see it as rather awful. If you think it isn't actually a sub-par alternative to normal piloting, then that's fine.
Quote
"I could've made a more OP character" isn't much of a valid argument in D&D.
Wasn't an argument. Just saying that for the concept it seemed cool. Now it seems less like becoming one with the mecha and more like the mecha is using the pilot like some kind of shield. The argument was that if you you're stating that Machine Warrior is there to make One with the Machine work for an android to make the healing options sort of viable again with OwtM, the prestige class is available too late to be an option at the earlier levels.

Quote
-If you're already piloting a mecha, then you can't pilot another even if it's unattended just as if you were inside the mecha you're already piloting. If the mecha is being controlled by another Innovade, then it doesn't count as unattended. Also Innovades were originally meat bags machine slaves organic terminals for a super computer, so lack of android synergy is intended.
I'm asking what happens to a mecha/machine that suddenly becomes unattended within the range of two/more of those guys. Who gets to control it?  If it is treated as being in their possession, it is no longer unattended... but who gets to have it "in his possession" first?
Lack of android synergy is intended though I'm just pointing out that the idea of proxy machine control fits androids well (although the setting that it takes it from is for organics... in practice it seems machines would normally have an even easier time controlling other machines). Anyway.

Arsenal
Targeting  Simulator (IV) should probably have a -3 penalty to Will saves.
Booster (I) similarly doesn't have a penalty like the other movement increase accessories.
With accessories making maneuvers and spirit usage more efficient, maybe there should also be an accessory to make the energy consumption of movement more efficient as well. Like a better engine.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on October 29, 2016, 07:00:35 PM
For Born to Fight (specifically, Over the Top), does the base AC of some pure metal armour get added to the mecha's AC? And does armour proficiency factor into it in any degree?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Rekmond on October 31, 2016, 02:21:55 AM
Question, and something that only occurred to me to check a few minutes ago.

Mechs and space are quite commonly paired, but I am finding nothing in this material involving low light vision, dark vision, blind sight sensors, or anything really. Not even headlamps

No accessories or upgrades, and the only feat that makes any mention of them is the Funnel Control System in that "Your funnels benefits from any special visions and senses you have, and you can "see/sense" from their position as well."

Is this intentional or just something overlooked? Because it seems to me if your race doesn't have an ability for it, you are going to have a really bad time trying to fight in the darkness of space or even at night.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on October 31, 2016, 07:08:31 AM
I thought the problem with space wasn't lighting, but distance? If it's dark, you're basically in a planet's shadow and fighting at night anyway.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on October 31, 2016, 10:48:59 AM
Is it intentional that Gate to Nowhere, Showtime Star, Cyber Newtype, Innovade, and Coordinator aren't [Pilot] Feats? The former two especially, as they require Pilot Levels

Also, it feels weird to me that Cyber Newtype doesn't let you use funnels, what with that being pretty much the whole point of cyber newtypes (not entirely, but you get what I mean)
Ups, fixed. I specifically thought about the Funnels unblocking part but then I forgot to actually write it down.

For Born to Fight (specifically, Over the Top), does the base AC of some pure metal armour get added to the mecha's AC? And does armour proficiency factor into it in any degree?
Yes you get the AC, and yes, you need the respective armor proficiency to benefit from specific pure metal properties.

Question, and something that only occurred to me to check a few minutes ago.

Mechs and space are quite commonly paired, but I am finding nothing in this material involving low light vision, dark vision, blind sight sensors, or anything really. Not even headlamps

No accessories or upgrades, and the only feat that makes any mention of them is the Funnel Control System in that "Your funnels benefits from any special visions and senses you have, and you can "see/sense" from their position as well."

Is this intentional or just something overlooked? Because it seems to me if your race doesn't have an ability for it, you are going to have a really bad time trying to fight in the darkness of space or even at night.

Hmmm, I guess overlooked is the right word, since the games just reveal everything right away. I guess I'll write something for mechas having default lamps and then some special senses acessories/upgrades when I'm not so sleepy (at the top of my head acessories more based on vision/sound, super would get exotic stuff like Scent and permanent Detect X effects).


Quote
A lot of the so-called CO community preaches the exact opposite, that in-combat healing is a waste of time because you could be killing stuff instead.
That's not as relevant in a system that doesn't consume actions to heal.
But it does consume resources that could be used to kill your enemy faster. Spirits being spent on healing are spirits not spent on Strike/Valor/Zeal/etc.

Quote
"I could've made a more OP character" isn't much of a valid argument in D&D.
Wasn't an argument. Just saying that for the concept it seemed cool. Now it seems less like becoming one with the mecha and more like the mecha is using the pilot like some kind of shield. The argument was that if you you're stating that Machine Warrior is there to make One with the Machine work for an android to make the healing options sort of viable again with OwtM, the prestige class is available too late to be an option at the earlier levels.

The way you thought One with the Machine works is borked at low-mid levels. Because you can get full-heals and percentage-based regeneration in this system, the benefits of having a higher max HP are drastically increased. Now as you may've noticed, the ways to actually increase your max mecha HP are rather limited. But then the android that gets to throw those limits out the window. And if then the android also gets to benefit from full/percentage heals, their value scales pretty much out of control. It just can't be compared. The damage needed to do any significant damage to your vision of One with the Machine will have killed the rest of the party multiple times over. That's, if anything, a high level concept.

tl:dr-Making the rules work like you suggest will mean android is the only true way of making a tanky mecha because any other race will suck balls in durability terms when compared to the android mecha at low-mid levels.

Quote
-If you're already piloting a mecha, then you can't pilot another even if it's unattended just as if you were inside the mecha you're already piloting. If the mecha is being controlled by another Innovade, then it doesn't count as unattended. Also Innovades were originally meat bags machine slaves organic terminals for a super computer, so lack of android synergy is intended.
I'm asking what happens to a mecha/machine that suddenly becomes unattended within the range of two/more of those guys. Who gets to control it?  If it is treated as being in their possession, it is no longer unattended... but who gets to have it "in his possession" first?
Lack of android synergy is intended though I'm just pointing out that the idea of proxy machine control fits androids well (although the setting that it takes it from is for organics... in practice it seems machines would normally have an even easier time controlling other machines). Anyway.
There's a reason why most mecha are piloted by meat bags. Something brain waves.

Arsenal
Targeting  Simulator (IV) should probably have a -3 penalty to Will saves.
Good catch.

Booster (I) similarly doesn't have a penalty like the other movement increase accessories.
None of the level I acessories have.

With accessories making maneuvers and spirit usage more efficient, maybe there should also be an accessory to make the energy consumption of movement more efficient as well. Like a better engine.
It's called a ship.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on November 01, 2016, 12:23:31 AM
The way you thought One with the Machine works is borked at low-mid levels.
No, he's saying it's borked at all levels.

So aside from the fact a Mech will typically have more HP anyway and your text entry directly disagrees with your recent ruling; When a Critical Hit happens the Pilot takes roughly 300% damage, the x2 damage to the Mech as the damage is shared, and the none-critical amount that hits the pilot for all Critical Hits. This is devastating no matter the character or optimization level. Likewise, bashing healing in battle aside because you are trying to offer free-action healing in combat, damage is shared but not healing so you need twice as much as before. You will have cases of the mech/droid combo taking 55% damage in a round, an ally trying to heal the mech, and the pilot being dead in the seat next round anyway. One with the Machine is an optional penalty that offers no real bonuses.

I think I also figured it out. You remind me of those programming noobs, you fix one tiny little error and then the console spams forty seven errors back at you and all you can do is hoot, rant, complain, self-contradict, and otherwise try to bully the compiler into submission. It's frustrating but relax. You're receiving comments not inherently because it's broken to hell and back, but because people are interested enough to help you try and make it even better. Just accept there will be no end to things that need fixed, specially when patch jobs result in none-working concepts, and put them on a time table like everything else and you'll probably feel better.
Incidentally, imgur had some deva comics up this morning. Have something you can probably relate to :p
(click to show/hide)

Also on the sensors, have some ideas such as electromagnet, infrared, x-ray, radar, laser emitters, etc. You could spoof it up for all seven Arsenal levels and maybe offer some alternative methods of sensing (like emotion detectors? feel my burning heart justice!)
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Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on November 01, 2016, 12:37:38 AM

Hey, one of my players is griping about Mecha Engineer not being updated to the new EN system. Would it be too much trouble to ask for an update there?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on November 02, 2016, 12:57:16 AM
Ah, yes. I'll get it done within the next few days. I can pop up a quick formula for the new energy progressions per frame type though I'll recheck all the stuff that works off energy to make sure it fits the fact that there's a lot more energy to use in the early levels and less in the later levels. Probably following suit by similarly increasing/decreasing the energy costs based on what they do.
Maybe reassess other stuff again since there's been plenty of changes all around. Maybe also add some more Custom Soul options, especially the later levels that are empty. Probably using Soro's suggestions. I'll confirm when I'm done and the big lines of what changed to make it easier to update the sheets.

edit: Minor changes to some mecha hp caps. Different mecha energy progressions. Changes to the in-built real robot weapon costs and limits. Updated the multiclassing option with Real Robot to less arsenal space and to limit it off the generic robots along with minimum size reduction for taking the dynamic frame. More to come when I'll be back from work tomorrow, maybe.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on November 02, 2016, 05:30:36 AM
Added a bunch of new arsenal options, plus three new Super Robot upgrades, Undetectable, Ancient Sensor and Electronic Nose.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on November 02, 2016, 11:35:04 AM
Added a bunch of new arsenal options, plus three new Super Robot upgrades, Undetectable, Ancient Sensor and Electronic Nose.

The new arsenal options are kind of cool, but they also make Darkness being on the Arcane Pilot spell list kinda pointless. It doesn't do anything with how trivially easy it is to get darkvision now. I'm not suggesting remove darkvision, but maybe add some kind of upgrade Arcane Pilots can take as a super upgrade, perhaps, to let them bypass that?

And Anomander, you seem to have a typo in the formulas for mecha engineer EN
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Nanshork on November 02, 2016, 11:51:16 AM
Added a bunch of new arsenal options, plus three new Super Robot upgrades, Undetectable, Ancient Sensor and Electronic Nose.

The new arsenal options are kind of cool, but they also make Darkness being on the Arcane Pilot spell list kinda pointless. It doesn't do anything with how trivially easy it is to get darkvision now. I'm not suggesting remove darkvision, but maybe add some kind of upgrade Arcane Pilots can take as a super upgrade, perhaps, to let them bypass that?

And Anomander, you seem to have a typo in the formulas for mecha engineer EN

Darkvision doesn't allow you to see through magical darkness.  From the darkness spell "Even creatures that can normally see in such conditions (such as with darkvision or low-light vision) have the miss chance in an area shrouded in magical darkness."
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on November 02, 2016, 11:55:08 AM

Darkvision doesn't allow you to see through magical darkness.  From the darkness spell "Even creatures that can normally see in such conditions (such as with darkvision or low-light vision) have the miss chance in an area shrouded in magical darkness."

Right, whoops. I'm thinking of PF Darkness, which specifies that darkvision ignores it (unless it's Mythic).


Also, Anomander, the Engineer's Maintenance breakthrough. Is it intended that there is no limit to the amount of HP you can repair in one action aside from EN available?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on November 02, 2016, 01:16:08 PM
The new arsenal options are kind of cool, but they also make Darkness being on the Arcane Pilot spell list kinda pointless.
Most of the Arcane Pilot's Spells are pretty pointless. It's Evocation is out scaled by Arsenal, in general it's out performed by Splat of lower levels and almighty-tera-giga-mega-extraspecially when it comes to buffs, it goes almost no CC effects, no Divinations, no mooks, no movement, no town building/support, etc. Heck Ols complained last month over lack of Counters being used, Real/Super get five Counters, excluding applicable Boosts/Stances, and "That won't work twice!" & "Unbreakable Will" are extremely potent defensive abilities but the Arcane Pilot doesn't even get Wings of Cover which is still limited to 1/rnd vs Danger Zone's 1st level Parry's ability to block every attack if you have a high enough Attack Bonus, so it has literally nothing to counter outside of Spirits which apparently require prepared usage on the turn before actually knowing you needed them.  :-\

It puts an overwhelming amount of pressure on it's Extra Known slots but it only gets one of each level (two of the 1st) forcing you to take the most broken Spells you can find in order to compensate for your lack of choice and poor list. Like if you want to actually use CharOp's recognized blasting Spells like Combust, Dalamar's Lightning Lance, Wings of Flurry, Lord of the Sky, or w/e else then you gave up the chance to grab stuff like Haste, Spider Skin, Heart of Water, Scry, Superior Resistance, Teleport, etc. So maybe you just figure Planar Binding and picking creatures capable of providing both is the only way to go.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Rekmond on November 02, 2016, 05:54:42 PM
Ancient Sensor is great, love the multiple options to mix it up and not make it an always pick (except maybe for Moon Vanguard, that sense organic creatures mech size or bigger is some great synergy)

Electronic Nose and Undetectable are also options that have me in giggles. Scent in space and sensor baffling for sneaking up on people with blindsense.

but with Undectable, what happens if the detect range is effectively 0 mu? Are you invisible to their sensors outside of actual line of sight vision?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on November 02, 2016, 06:33:33 PM
but with Undectable, what happens if the detect range is effectively 0 mu? Are you invisible to their sensors outside of actual line of sight vision?
Pretty much sounds like it but you need more than upgrades.

For example, at level 4 the would be seeing only needs to invest in 9 Arsenal points for 120mu special vision. You need to invest 19 Arsenal points in the Yksvoknym Particles Generator and 2 Upgrade points into Undetectable to counter it. Electronic Disruptor's 1/12th should keep you from having to invest more Upgrade points into Undetectable but stealth just got a lot harder without just picking up Darkstalker.

Quote
Longo Alcance Radar (II): You gain Spacesense 120 mu plus you can see through fogs as well as obstacles not made of metal as long as they're less than 5 feet thick and within 120 mu, but you take a -1 penalty on Will saves. This takes only 9 arsenal space.

Raios X Radar Avançado(III): You can see through fogs, as well as obstacles not made of metal as long as they're less than 5 feet thick and within 120 mu but take a -1 penalty to all saves. This takes only 9 arsenal space.
Maybe flip flop them?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on November 02, 2016, 08:17:47 PM
Oslecamo, I'm running a game with this system, and one of my players (who doesn't have an account) wanted to make some requests about the system. Here is his point:
Quote from: Siflux
I'm pretty happy with most the system, but I have a serious problem with the Accessory nerfs. As they now stand, accessories cost 25 arsenal, but grant both a buff and a nerf. Arsenal is a pool of what is supposed to be points making you stronger, but post nerf, you spend your upgrade pool on specializing and altering your mech in a way that could just as easily be handled in the manner of giving Real Pilots their Arsenal tier worth of slots to mess around with their mech.


Speaking of slots, I'd like to propose an alternate way to handle accessories that would hopefully allow you to return them to their proper power level without any issues with them being unbalanced. What I propose is to switch accessories to a hardpoint/slot system (much like in the games), and to remove the nerfs on them. Additional Parts slots would be purchased with Arsenal, or with Upgrade on Supers, with additional slots costing more to naturally limit the max number of parts slots -- for example, 25 Arsenal for the first slot, as per the existing system, but then 50 for the next slot, 75 for the next slot, and so on, with each additional part slot costing 25 more than the last in this example. This is already well modeled with Hyperdimensional Storage for Supers, which could just be directly converted over to buying parts slots, since that's both the best thing to do with that upgrade and the reason why it was a mandatory pre-nerf set of upgrades on most super robot builds.


The existing accessory nerf hits Supers hard, as it greatly decreases the value of Extradimensional Storage. For Supers wanting special weapons like armor breakers, there should still be a way to get Arsenal. Maybe provide 10 Arsenal for free and force multi-classing for more. Maybe still let it be bought with Upgrade. The above numbers are suggested due to their match with current values from Upgrade, but could well be different. They're primarily provided as examples to illustrate the point. This would also provide an extra advantage towards taking Reals with built-in free accessories.


I believe that the biggest balance problem here is that it's trivial and used to be highly rewarding to grab tons of accessories as a Real, as your inbuilt weapons generally provided most or all of the combat options you needed, and Arsenal weapons cost very little Arsenal -- a heavy weapon like the Burst Railgun is only 10 Arsenal. Contrast with the games, where it's 40 W-Gauge in OG1, and 30 in OG2. By the current system, this is necessary to make Arsenal normal weapons at all desirable, as they must directly compete with accessories; unless you had less than 25 Arsenal left, by the pre-nerf system your best move was always taking another Accessory.


If you want to use Arsenal for accessories, there's a few good solutions that immediately occur to me. You can nerf them, which you did and I dislikebecause it makes them stop being special. You can increase the cost of normal Arsenal weapons, so characters have things other than Accessories to spend their Arsenal on, except likely that just means players will ignore arsenal weapons almost entirely, which I assume goes against your design intent here. Of course, not using Arsenal for accessories at all and giving each Real on the list a Part slot count would also work, much like in the games, but by the way this hasn’t been done, I am guessing that for some reason you consider this undesirable to the design.


The change of accessory from individually purchased to buying slots works poorly with the accessories with nonstandard costs, of which I think there are four categories: Refined Armament, Cartridge, sense-granting parts of cost 9, and such parts of cost 19. Solutions are varied for each. For Refined Armament, either move it to a different category to still be bought at 5 Arsenal, or make a single part slot filled with it apply its bonus to up to five weapons (or, since most units don't have more than five weapons anyway, just simplify things by making the one accessory apply to all weapons). Cartridge would be handled similarly: keep it Arsenal cost 2 instead of being an accessory, give pilots twelve of them to a slot, or buff them to the power seen in the games. For sensors, again possibly make them not take accessory slots, or allow three cost-9 sensors to a slot, or a cost-19 and a cost-9. By the current Arsenal numbers, those all should be of equivalent value.


Another possible solution to the nonstandard cost issue is to do percentage-based or static increases in Arsenal cost for each additional accessory: the first is the listed cost, the second costs 5% more than the normal cost for the accessory or 2 arsenal more, the third costs 10% more than base cost for the accessory or 5 arsenal more, and so on.


As a side effect of this change, normal Arsenal weapon costs could be increased to price most of them out of range of Supers, which is good -- Supers aren't supposed to be using mook weapons, especially not awesome ones like the Shishioh Blade or the Graviton Cannon. If you disagree with this and consider that a desirable outcome the system, it can still be allowed under this system by allowing Parts Slots to be traded in for 25 Arsenal each, thus making powerful normal Arsenal weapons still obtainable for Supers, but requiring the trade-in of multiple Parts slots, thus only being worth doing on highly specific builds (like ranged super).


Thank you for considering all this. Good game design is important to me, and I think this mod is a great base overall. I'm happy to be a player in this setting, there just still a few things to work on in my opinion. For things where you disagree with me, I'd really appreciate hearing your design intent, and your reason for doing things differently. I'm currently working off the assumption that your goal is basically 'like Super Robot Wars, but d20 and with all the benefits of the SRD behind it'.

Also, the combining robot system in Mecha Mook doesn't seem to have been updated for the EN overhaul
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on November 02, 2016, 08:33:39 PM
Oslecamo, I'm running a game with this system, and one of my players (who doesn't have an account) wanted to make some requests about the system. Here is his point:
Quote from: Siflux
Lots of things to think about.
I was about to post a reply to previous comments when I saw this. Your player raises several good points but right now I don't have the time to properly write a reply, in particular because several of his suggestions sound like they're worth working on and I want to properly consider them. Hopefully I'll be able to give a more detailed answer later today or tommorrow.

Also, the combining robot system in Mecha Mook doesn't seem to have been updated for the EN overhaul
I'll see to updating it soon too, thanks for the catch!

Ancient Sensor is great, love the multiple options to mix it up and not make it an always pick (except maybe for Moon Vanguard, that sense organic creatures mech size or bigger is some great synergy)

Electronic Nose and Undetectable are also options that have me in giggles. Scent in space and sensor baffling for sneaking up on people with blindsense.

but with Undectable, what happens if the detect range is effectively 0 mu? Are you invisible to their sensors outside of actual line of sight vision?
Correct.

The new arsenal options are kind of cool, but they also make Darkness being on the Arcane Pilot spell list kinda pointless.
Most of the Arcane Pilot's Spells are pretty pointless. It's Evocation is out scaled by Arsenal, in general it's out performed by Splat of lower levels and almighty-tera-giga-mega-extraspecially when it comes to buffs, it goes almost no CC effects, no Divinations, no mooks, no movement, no town building/support, etc.
Eeerr, Arcane Pilot has plenty of Divinations, from the humble Detect Magic to Locate Object to  Clairaudience/Clairvoyance to Locate Creature to True Seeing, several more all the way to Foresight.

Also a fair amount of support, from Alarm to Darkness to Heroism to Cat’s Grace.

As for town building, he has mecha-scale Unseen Servant.

Mooks come from the familiars. You even pointed out how you can make a build about turning them into gun turrets to lay out the dakka good.

And yes, the real/super pilot outdamage the arcane pilot because real/super don't really have anything at all utility wise on their side of the gestalt.

Heck Ols complained last month over lack of Counters being used, Real/Super get five Counters, excluding applicable Boosts/Stances, and "That won't work twice!" & "Unbreakable Will" are extremely potent defensive abilities but the Arcane Pilot doesn't even get Wings of Cover which is still limited to 1/rnd vs Danger Zone's 1st level Parry's ability to block every attack if you have a high enough Attack Bonus, so it has literally nothing to counter outside of Spirits which apparently require prepared usage on the turn before actually knowing you needed them.  :-\
Defend/Evade pilot feats. Even the Arcane Pilot gets some of those bonus.

It puts an overwhelming amount of pressure on it's Extra Known slots but it only gets one of each level (two of the 1st) forcing you to take the most broken Spells you can find in order to compensate for your lack of choice and poor list. Like if you want to actually use CharOp's recognized blasting Spells like Combust, Dalamar's Lightning Lance, Wings of Flurry, Lord of the Sky, or w/e else then you gave up the chance to grab stuff like Haste, Spider Skin, Heart of Water, Scry, Superior Resistance, Teleport, etc. So maybe you just figure Planar Binding and picking creatures capable of providing both is the only way to go.
Why yes, the intention is for Arcane Pilots to specialize in a certain type of magic instead of every mage character knowing all of the uber spell ever without real effort. And any of the spells you mentioned are enough on their own to make the Arcane Pilot a MVP for the party.

Then as you're doing in the game you can get extra spells through a variety of items.

Of course if your next step is to abuse Planar Binding, well, you're abusing planar binding, point.

but with Undectable, what happens if the detect range is effectively 0 mu? Are you invisible to their sensors outside of actual line of sight vision?
Pretty much sounds like it but you need more than upgrades.

2For example, at level 4 the would be seeing only needs to invest in 9 Arsenal points for 120mu special vision. You need to invest 19 Arsenal points in the Yksvoknym Particles Generator and 2 Upgrade points into Undetectable to counter it. Electronic Disruptor's 1/12th should keep you from having to invest more Upgrade points into Undetectable but stealth just got a lot harder without just picking up Darkstalker.
Buffed up Yksvoknym Particles Generator to 1/6 range.

Quote
Longo Alcance Radar (II): You gain Spacesense 120 mu plus you can see through fogs as well as obstacles not made of metal as long as they're less than 5 feet thick and within 120 mu, but you take a -1 penalty on Will saves. This takes only 9 arsenal space.

Raios X Radar Avançado(III): You can see through fogs, as well as obstacles not made of metal as long as they're less than 5 feet thick and within 120 mu but take a -1 penalty to all saves. This takes only 9 arsenal space.
Maybe flip flop them?
Ups, Raiox X Radar Avançado should have 240 mu range, fixed.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on November 02, 2016, 11:03:51 PM
Hopefully I'll be able to give a more detailed answer later today or tommorrow.
Really, the tl;dr is everything form weapon damage to cost should have had a balancing formula to it. Like cost specific, if you did say 1pt ammo, 2pts sensors, 4pts basic equipment, 6pts refined, you could balance all your costs. Later in post, you can inflated it to a 50~300 point system since the numbers them selves are arbitrary. But if you decided something should cost 225pts it should equal to something like a [basic (4 or 200pts) + 1/2 ammo (0.5 or 25pts)] and if it's not then you know it's cost needs a different value.

Eeerr, Arcane Pilot has plenty of Divinations, from the humble Detect Magic to Locate Object to  Clairaudience/Clairvoyance to Locate Creature to True Seeing, several more all the way to Foresight.
The core problem is you started at the SRD list and then started cutting Spells out which ended up leaving a theme of patchwork (no scry until lv14?). Like you have Alarm sure, and all the other upgrades for personally sleeping safely at night but you can't Fabricate a series of walls to protect more than a half dozen people or Move Earth some trenches in for warfare. What you have is a mech sized magical plate that can hold dirt the caster's mech sized bare hands have to pick up using his mech sized shovel that deals minimal damage to dirt.  :P

Some of the cuts make sense for balance sake, but if you're looking to balance the List then it also needs to be balanced to what the other Classes can do. Like yeah maybe the Arcane Pilot gets the same bonus Feats Super/Real does, but so does the Real/Super and that's not going to change the fact the Real/Super have exclusive extras for attack countering. The Arcane (and divine) should also get their own alternatives too, specially if you feel players need it to begin with.

Why yes, the intention is for Arcane Pilots to specialize in a certain type of magic instead of every mage character knowing all of the uber spell ever without real effort. And any of the spells you mentioned are enough on their own to make the Arcane Pilot a MVP for the party.
>.>
You have a funny way of wanting Arcane Pilots to specialize in a limited report of Spells. For one thing they can't choose a Spell that supports their specialty until a level after they gain the new Spell Level and "Favorite Spell" always shows up a level before you can choose your actual favorite Spell so you always "favor" spells you hate using.

Then as you're doing in the game you can get extra spells through a variety of items.
Yeah but Phantasm Star is a high powered game, some List snatching is expected, and Super Robot Wars the Campaign setting is not forced Gestated & high powered. :p

That being said you can set aside the differences in expected scale and look at the heart of it. Because I had to invest I wanted to increase the return, one thing led to another and in cause and effect Bahamut really doesn't have anything you'd call a cool item, since he's just a dragon on fire that spent most of his wealth trying to obtain Spells Arcane Pilot doesn't have.

And that's ok in the build. The RPs been fun, next level I'm a lot less constrained with my buffs with got me to pick some more interesting ones which are still pretty new to me. But Bahamut & Phantasy Star aside, Arcane Pilot has some problems. Even the Warmage, Beguiler, and Dread Necromancer gets Splat Spells. If you want the Arcane Pilot to really narrow in on some favorites, less choice isn't the solution but more. Like you could cut the default list some more so it's purely basic role fulfilling then triple the open space giving them at least three Spells of every level to pick.

When people are limited they always grab what can give them the most. Like in another lovely SorO analogy. If you're poor you walk into Walk-Mart and throw a bunch of Hamburger in the cart because you can cook that in all kinds of ways and Hamburger Helper literately sells pasta ideas you can create after visiting the baking & spice section. But if you have the money to spend, you might instead walk in and think I want Tacos and BBQ New York strips which just doesn't have Hamburger in every option the guy with more restrictive limits has. You don't have to pick Polymorph's ominous solutions if you can pick up a number of unique Transmutations you like. You don't have to pick up Orb of Acid if you have the spare room to pick up different elemental Spells or even more than one area one Spell. Etc.

You'll always have a narrow section of people that will try to abuse the system much like the rich guy that refuses to pay his taxes, but choice breeds the ability to select things that do not amount to the best swiss army knife.

Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on November 03, 2016, 01:36:15 AM
Quote
And Anomander, you seem to have a typo in the formulas for mecha engineer EN
Good catch. Should be correct now.

Quote
Also, Anomander, the Engineer's Maintenance breakthrough. Is it intended that there is no limit to the amount of HP you can repair in one action aside from EN available?
Indeed though it doesn't work as well as it did now that there is so much energy to go around at the early levels. I increased the cost of the repairs to 6 EN per HP, scaling down to 1 EN per HP again at class level 10. It'll be more costy at the mid-late levels than it was before considering the lower energy caps so I'll perhaps make an higher tier maintenance breakthrough to make the first XperY hp restored free to make minor heals only cost the action and make strong heals as expensive as it was in the lower levels. Increased the status effect removal a bit as well.

- Reduced the maximum energy cost of a prototype weapon since energy isn't much of an issue early.
- Gave a higher starting energy to the escape pod breakthroughs.
- I capped overclock. It now doesn't cover energy costs for the movement itself.
- Improved the advanced energy shield since there's less energy to use on it but delayed regen 3.
- SotM; Scratched auto-repair and replaced it with reinforced frame.

That's it for the time being. Will check other stuff later.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on November 03, 2016, 02:15:57 AM
Did Super Robots always have a base Arsenal space before accounting for Hyperdimensional Storage?

Also I just noticed Super Robots have a base Arsenal Space so after I update my character I could still have Arsenal options......this is going to be such a pain going through everything like this to make sure I'm not missing anything niche -_-'
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on November 03, 2016, 02:16:45 AM
Did Super Robots always have a base Arsenal space before accounting for Hyperdimensional Storage?

Also I just noticed Super Robots have a base Arsenal Space so after I update my character I could still have Arsenal options......this is going to be such a pain going through everything like this to make sure I'm not missing anything niche -_-'
That appears to have just been added. Oslecamo seems to be going through and switching over to hardpoints
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on November 03, 2016, 02:24:00 AM
Well yeah, the Hardpoints thing is new. I meant before that too. I always thought Supers had 0 arsenal even before these updates.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on November 03, 2016, 02:24:53 AM
Well yeah, the Hardpoints thing is new. I meant before that too. I always thought Supers had 0 arsenal even before these updates.

Supers had 0 base arsenal before the updates.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on November 03, 2016, 02:30:22 AM
Okay, good. I wasn't missing out on more stuff I should have had then. That happens alot with me haha -_-'
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Rekmond on November 03, 2016, 02:37:39 AM
.....and I had redesigned my Moon Vanguard just yesterday.

Maybe I should build stuff off this material more often. After I do so it seems to get more updates....maybe go visit the Maid then.

*smacks face* Vanguard first Rek, maybe we'll get that in a final version before the hydra attacks.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on November 03, 2016, 03:17:38 AM
Yes, I'm updating the tables.

But this time I'm also leaving the old tables behind.

Well, except Super Robot, but I guess everybody can easily remember that Hyperdimensional Storage gave 1 Hardpoint per 25 Arsenal space, but now Super Robots get 4 Arsenal Space default.

Anyway the amount of guns/acessories you can have should be pretty much the same this time.

More on that later, preparing a big post.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on November 03, 2016, 03:47:25 AM
Quote from: Siflux
I'm pretty happy with most the system, but I have a serious problem with the Accessory nerfs. As they now stand, accessories cost 25 arsenal, but grant both a buff and a nerf. Arsenal is a pool of what is supposed to be points making you stronger, but post nerf, you spend your upgrade pool on specializing and altering your mech in a way that could just as easily be handled in the manner of giving Real Pilots their Arsenal tier worth of slots to mess around with their mech.

Speaking of slots, I'd like to propose an alternate way to handle accessories that would hopefully allow you to return them to their proper power level without any issues with them being unbalanced. What I propose is to switch accessories to a hardpoint/slot system (much like in the games), and to remove the nerfs on them. Additional Parts slots would be purchased with Arsenal, or with Upgrade on Supers, with additional slots costing more to naturally limit the max number of parts slots -- for example, 25 Arsenal for the first slot, as per the existing system, but then 50 for the next slot, 75 for the next slot, and so on, with each additional part slot costing 25 more than the last in this example. This is already well modeled with Hyperdimensional Storage for Supers, which could just be directly converted over to buying parts slots, since that's both the best thing to do with that upgrade and the reason why it was a mandatory pre-nerf set of upgrades on most super robot builds.


The existing accessory nerf hits Supers hard, as it greatly decreases the value of Extradimensional Storage. For Supers wanting special weapons like armor breakers, there should still be a way to get Arsenal. Maybe provide 10 Arsenal for free and force multi-classing for more. Maybe still let it be bought with Upgrade. The above numbers are suggested due to their match with current values from Upgrade, but could well be different. They're primarily provided as examples to illustrate the point. This would also provide an extra advantage towards taking Reals with built-in free accessories.


I believe that the biggest balance problem here is that it's trivial and used to be highly rewarding to grab tons of accessories as a Real, as your inbuilt weapons generally provided most or all of the combat options you needed, and Arsenal weapons cost very little Arsenal -- a heavy weapon like the Burst Railgun is only 10 Arsenal. Contrast with the games, where it's 40 W-Gauge in OG1, and 30 in OG2. By the current system, this is necessary to make Arsenal normal weapons at all desirable, as they must directly compete with accessories; unless you had less than 25 Arsenal left, by the pre-nerf system your best move was always taking another Accessory.


If you want to use Arsenal for accessories, there's a few good solutions that immediately occur to me. You can nerf them, which you did and I dislikebecause it makes them stop being special. You can increase the cost of normal Arsenal weapons, so characters have things other than Accessories to spend their Arsenal on, except likely that just means players will ignore arsenal weapons almost entirely, which I assume goes against your design intent here. Of course, not using Arsenal for accessories at all and giving each Real on the list a Part slot count would also work, much like in the games, but by the way this hasn’t been done, I am guessing that for some reason you consider this undesirable to the design.
You know, I can't really remember why I didn't just do that from the start. And it allows for pretty much what I want, that you'll pick a bunch of acessories and weapons.

Acessories no longer give penalties and now demand Hardpoints. Supers/Reals/Ships/multiclass updated to have those. I left the old lists in place for posterity's sake and people who don't want to update their sheets again. Although the number of acessories/weapons you can take should be about the same.
(click to show/hide)


Quote from: Siflux
The change of accessory from individually purchased to buying slots works poorly with the accessories with nonstandard costs, of which I think there are four categories: Refined Armament, Cartridge, sense-granting parts of cost 9, and such parts of cost 19. Solutions are varied for each. For Refined Armament, either move it to a different category to still be bought at 5 Arsenal, or make a single part slot filled with it apply its bonus to up to five weapons (or, since most units don't have more than five weapons anyway, just simplify things by making the one accessory apply to all weapons). Cartridge would be handled similarly: keep it Arsenal cost 2 instead of being an accessory, give pilots twelve of them to a slot, or buff them to the power seen in the games. For sensors, again possibly make them not take accessory slots, or allow three cost-9 sensors to a slot, or a cost-19 and a cost-9. By the current Arsenal numbers, those all should be of equivalent value.
-Made Refined Armament apply to all weapons and allowed it to be combined with one Radar option, which can be taken multiple times stacking 
-Combined Ablative Plates with the anti-radar systems.

Quote from: Siflux
Another possible solution to the nonstandard cost issue is to do percentage-based or static increases in Arsenal cost for each additional accessory: the first is the listed cost, the second costs 5% more than the normal cost for the accessory or 2 arsenal more, the third costs 10% more than base cost for the accessory or 5 arsenal more, and so on.

As a side effect of this change, normal Arsenal weapon costs could be increased to price most of them out of range of Supers, which is good -- Supers aren't supposed to be using mook weapons, especially not awesome ones like the Shishioh Blade or the Graviton Cannon. If you disagree with this and consider that a desirable outcome the system, it can still be allowed under this system by allowing Parts Slots to be traded in for 25 Arsenal each, thus making powerful normal Arsenal weapons still obtainable for Supers, but requiring the trade-in of multiple Parts slots, thus only being worth doing on highly specific builds (like ranged super).
Well now Super Robots have 4 arsenal space that allows for some back-up firepower but none of the heavy hitters. If you want Dancounga-style, then that's for what Real/Super multiclass is for.

Quote from: Siflux
Thank you for considering all this. Good game design is important to me, and I think this mod is a great base overall. I'm happy to be a player in this setting, there just still a few things to work on in my opinion. For things where you disagree with me, I'd really appreciate hearing your design intent, and your reason for doing things differently. I'm currently working off the assumption that your goal is basically 'like Super Robot Wars, but d20 and with all the benefits of the SRD behind it'.
100% correct on figuring out my goal. Thanks a lot for that help! Your scaling costs ideas was interesting, but eventually I believe modules/hardpoints are both simpler and closer to the source.

Quote
Also, the combining robot system in Mecha Mook doesn't seem to have been updated for the EN overhaul
Combining Robot updated.

Hopefully I'll be able to give a more detailed answer later today or tommorrow.
Really, the tl;dr is everything form weapon damage to cost should have had a balancing formula to it. Like cost specific, if you did say 1pt ammo, 2pts sensors, 4pts basic equipment, 6pts refined, you could balance all your costs. Later in post, you can inflated it to a 50~300 point system since the numbers them selves are arbitrary. But if you decided something should cost 225pts it should equal to something like a [basic (4 or 200pts) + 1/2 ammo (0.5 or 25pts)] and if it's not then you know it's cost needs a different value.
Siflux reminded me correctly that in SRW games Arsenal weapons and acessories consume different separate resources, and all of the acessories have the same cost.

Eeerr, Arcane Pilot has plenty of Divinations, from the humble Detect Magic to Locate Object to  Clairaudience/Clairvoyance to Locate Creature to True Seeing, several more all the way to Foresight.
The core problem is you started at the SRD list and then started cutting Spells out which ended up leaving a theme of patchwork (no scry until lv14?). Like you have Alarm sure, and all the other upgrades for personally sleeping safely at night but you can't Fabricate a series of walls to protect more than a half dozen people or Move Earth some trenches in for warfare. What you have is a mech sized magical plate that can hold dirt the caster's mech sized bare hands have to pick up using his mech sized shovel that deals minimal damage to dirt.  :P

Some of the cuts make sense for balance sake, but if you're looking to balance the List then it also needs to be balanced to what the other Classes can do. Like yeah maybe the Arcane Pilot gets the same bonus Feats Super/Real does, but so does the Real/Super and that's not going to change the fact the Real/Super have exclusive extras for attack countering. The Arcane (and divine) should also get their own alternatives too, specially if you feel players need it to begin with.
Arcane/Divine have spells and no maneuvers. Supers/Reals/Captains have maneuvers and no spells. And I'm pretty sure there's a lot of Immediate Action spells out there to pick if you want to go that way.

Why yes, the intention is for Arcane Pilots to specialize in a certain type of magic instead of every mage character knowing all of the uber spell ever without real effort. And any of the spells you mentioned are enough on their own to make the Arcane Pilot a MVP for the party.
>.>
You have a funny way of wanting Arcane Pilots to specialize in a limited report of Spells. For one thing they can't choose a Spell that supports their specialty until a level after they gain the new Spell Level and "Favorite Spell" always shows up a level before you can choose your actual favorite Spell so you always "favor" spells you hate using.
Eeerrr, you can change your Favored Spell at every Arcane Pilot level up. :psyduck.

Then as you're doing in the game you can get extra spells through a variety of items.
Yeah but Phantasm Star is a high powered game, some List snatching is expected, and Super Robot Wars the Campaign setting is not forced Gestated & high powered. :p
True, although I highly recommend the Gestalt bit, in particular so that Reals/Super pilots have something to do besides smashing face.

And really need to work on properly fleshing out that general fluff. Right now using this material is heavily dependant on the DM coming up with their own adventures/plot.

Actually been working bit by bit on creating a sample world based on our campaign so far, in particular how Parum developed and descended into total war, the different factions competing and how the Android Administration rose to power, while new technologies were researched and some planets of the system blowing up, but hard work is hard.

That being said you can set aside the differences in expected scale and look at the heart of it. Because I had to invest I wanted to increase the return, one thing led to another and in cause and effect Bahamut really doesn't have anything you'd call a cool item, since he's just a dragon on fire that spent most of his wealth trying to obtain Spells Arcane Pilot doesn't have.
Hadn't you said you didn't even spent most of Baha's money? :P

Anyway a bunch of knowledge boosters is still cooler than generic number boosters.

And that's ok in the build. The RPs been fun, next level I'm a lot less constrained with my buffs with got me to pick some more interesting ones which are still pretty new to me. But Bahamut & Phantasy Star aside, Arcane Pilot has some problems. Even the Warmage, Beguiler, and Dread Necromancer gets Splat Spells. If you want the Arcane Pilot to really narrow in on some favorites, less choice isn't the solution but more. Like you could cut the default list some more so it's purely basic role fulfilling then triple the open space giving them at least three Spells of every level to pick.
Not sure if you mean spell level or Arcane Pilot but three spells per either is a nope.jpg. The super/real get only 20/19 maneuvers and some stances from a much more limited list and that's it.

Now Warmage/Beguiller/Dread Necro do get splat spells. From the splats they were printed on. So I guess I may continue the Phantasy Star conversions and turn their techniques into generic Arcane/Divine pilot spells and the game skills into feats those two classes can take as bonus.

The basic plan would be that those spells are divided into 6 main groups (Fire, Ice, Lighting, Wind, Light, Darkness) and they can all be cast with different actions from Immediate to 1 round. The longer you spend casting a spell the stronger it is. Each "element" then gets some feats to boost it.

When people are limited they always grab what can give them the most. Like in another lovely SorO analogy. If you're poor you walk into Walk-Mart and throw a bunch of Hamburger in the cart because you can cook that in all kinds of ways and Hamburger Helper literately sells pasta ideas you can create after visiting the baking & spice section. But if you have the money to spend, you might instead walk in and think I want Tacos and BBQ New York strips which just doesn't have Hamburger in every option the guy with more restrictive limits has. You don't have to pick Polymorph's ominous solutions if you can pick up a number of unique Transmutations you like. You don't have to pick up Orb of Acid if you have the spare room to pick up different elemental Spells or even more than one area one Spell. Etc.

You'll always have a narrow section of people that will try to abuse the system much like the rich guy that refuses to pay his taxes, but choice breeds the ability to select things that do not amount to the best swiss army knife.

I'll still rather write my own custom spells and feats than dig through over a dozen splats. And if then a player really wants something from splat X, they can take it.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on November 03, 2016, 11:08:23 AM
True, although I highly recommend the Gestalt bit, in particular so that Reals/Super pilots have something to do besides smashing face.


I dunno, my campaign is running without Gestalt, and everyone seems to be really enjoying it.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on November 03, 2016, 12:29:45 PM
Arcane/Divine have spells and no maneuvers. Supers/Reals/Captains have maneuvers and no spells. And I'm pretty sure there's a lot of Immediate Action spells out there to pick if you want to go that way.
Probably, but the point is nothing on the Arcane Pilot's List does. Having to spend your only 2nd level Slot choice on picking up something you really should have anyway and Super/Reals got two levels ago sucks, for Spells and Maneuvers to be comparable they have to be well, comparable.

And when it comes to spending money to fix things, you realize Real/Supers can buy Spell access to right?

Eeerrr, you can change your Favored Spell at every Arcane Pilot level up. :psyduck.
It's even in it's own paragraph and I still missed it  :banghead

Actually been working bit by bit on creating a sample world based on our campaign so far, in particular how Parum developed and descended into total war, the different factions competing and how the Android Administration rose to power, while new technologies were researched and some planets of the system blowing up, but hard work is hard.
Cool, need some help with the dragon side? I pretty much wrote the entire history of the Helsing family in my head, parts of it spun from your lore and the rest of it is pretty much how I do everything else. Like discovering of the Staff of Tongues for human transmutation, which excuses how your Monster Classes bypass biology btw, to how spells such as Teleport gave them a massive start in space exploration.

Hadn't you said you didn't even spent most of Baha's money? :P
Anyway a bunch of knowledge boosters is still cooler than generic number boosters.
It's like 14k and someone never told me how much that axe is worth anyway so until he does I'm just going to treat it as 0. So while I technically never spent all of Bahamut's money, I also am probably technically four thousand in the hole since a +3 is at least 18k :p

Also the +10 item on Knowledge[astronomy] is getting nixed anyway, someone was like you need Craft[explosions] instead and due to your campaign's Arsenal massively outpaced Divine Flame's output there was not point in spending the 10k on the item anymore.

Not sure if you mean spell level or Arcane Pilot but three spells per either is a nope.jpg. The super/real get only 20/19 maneuvers and some stances from a much more limited list and that's it.
Already anticipated that comment and I already  suggested cutting the "default" list down some more so you'd end up with either the same number of Spells or less, but the Player would have ones they like.  :)

Writing your own Spells may be the way you want to go but you already have a ton of stuff on your plate to alter, tweak, and balance before trying to introduce a bunch of Spells with no sight of where the lines are. Use what you have now and get it working first, and if it's in balance with D&D rather than it's own tune, you won't even have to rewrite Spells (just ban a few key ones).
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on November 03, 2016, 02:18:31 PM
One thing that my players and I noticed about Combining Team is that it only allows for five person teams, and forces the combination to be the same every time. I feel this is a disservice to Getter Robo and Aquarion and the like (and even the SRX, to an extent). To this end, we’ve got some changes to suggest for Combining Team allowing both the Golion style combiners the feat currently allows and other styles of combiners as well, from the two pilot Godannar and the three pilot Getters, to the massive 15-ish pilot Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann.


The feat would function mostly in the same manner, but could be taken by any pilot class, not just  mecha mooks, so long as all intended pilots were taking it at the same time.


In addition, each member of the combiner team would choose their own set of upgrade points rather than having one specific set chosen for the combiner no matter what. The number of upgrade points available would be equal to the combined team size. These upgrades would be the extra ones in use when that pilot is the lead pilot. This would allow for things like Getter or Aquarion with different capabilities depending on which pilot is currently in charge. As an example, the current mecha mook team has five pilots, so they get five upgrade points as a bonus while combined. A three person combiner like Getter Robo would have three upgrade points as a bonus while combined. A 15 person combiner like Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann would have 15 upgrade points as a bonus while combined. In all three cases, the lead pilot would choose which upgrades those points would be spent on, but each pilot could have a different selection, making pilot swapping relevant.


If taken by a team of non mook characters, each member of the team would get +2 HP/level for their mecha. The combined robot would have the average base HP of the components, plus the combined bonus HP that the team got (so it would have the average base HP of the components, +2*number of pilots/level). The level used would be the average of super pilot levels in the team, which would also determine upgrade access to the combined team. These upgrades would still be split evenly among the team members. As an example, the current mecha mook team will always have the same super pilot levels among the pilots, so it will use that super pilot level for bonus HP and super upgrades. A three person combiner like Getter Robo with two pilots at super pilot level 4 and one at super pilot level 7 would have an average super pilot level of 5, so would use that for bonus HP and super upgrades. A fifteen pilot combiner like Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann with 5 level 1 super pilots, 9 level 3 super pilots, and a level 15 super pilot would have an average super pilot level of 3, and so would use that level for bonus HP and super upgrades.


As an additional change, it was felt that the prevention of taking Relationship feats by members of a combiner team is a little bit silly, so that restriction would be removed, though of course they would not function while the team is combined. This would allow team members to have relationship bonuses with each other while not combined, but wouldn’t give the combined team an undue advantage by having relationship bonuses that can’t be attacked.




Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on November 03, 2016, 07:37:59 PM
True, although I highly recommend the Gestalt bit, in particular so that Reals/Super pilots have something to do besides smashing face.


I dunno, my campaign is running without Gestalt, and everyone seems to be really enjoying it.
Then I guess I get to pat myself on the back for things turning out better than expected! :P

One thing that my players and I noticed about Combining Team is that it only allows for five person teams, and forces the combination to be the same every time. I feel this is a disservice to Getter Robo and Aquarion and the like (and even the SRX, to an extent). To this end, we’ve got some changes to suggest for Combining Team allowing both the Golion style combiners the feat currently allows and other styles of combiners as well, from the two pilot Godannar and the three pilot Getters, to the massive 15-ish pilot Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann.


The feat would function mostly in the same manner, but could be taken by any pilot class, not just  mecha mooks, so long as all intended pilots were taking it at the same time.


In addition, each member of the combiner team would choose their own set of upgrade points rather than having one specific set chosen for the combiner no matter what. The number of upgrade points available would be equal to the combined team size. These upgrades would be the extra ones in use when that pilot is the lead pilot. This would allow for things like Getter or Aquarion with different capabilities depending on which pilot is currently in charge. As an example, the current mecha mook team has five pilots, so they get five upgrade points as a bonus while combined. A three person combiner like Getter Robo would have three upgrade points as a bonus while combined. A 15 person combiner like Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann would have 15 upgrade points as a bonus while combined. In all three cases, the lead pilot would choose which upgrades those points would be spent on, but each pilot could have a different selection, making pilot swapping relevant.


If taken by a team of non mook characters, each member of the team would get +2 HP/level for their mecha. The combined robot would have the average base HP of the components, plus the combined bonus HP that the team got (so it would have the average base HP of the components, +2*number of pilots/level). The level used would be the average of super pilot levels in the team, which would also determine upgrade access to the combined team. These upgrades would still be split evenly among the team members. As an example, the current mecha mook team will always have the same super pilot levels among the pilots, so it will use that super pilot level for bonus HP and super upgrades. A three person combiner like Getter Robo with two pilots at super pilot level 4 and one at super pilot level 7 would have an average super pilot level of 5, so would use that for bonus HP and super upgrades. A fifteen pilot combiner like Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann with 5 level 1 super pilots, 9 level 3 super pilots, and a level 15 super pilot would have an average super pilot level of 3, and so would use that level for bonus HP and super upgrades.


As an additional change, it was felt that the prevention of taking Relationship feats by members of a combiner team is a little bit silly, so that restriction would be removed, though of course they would not function while the team is combined. This would allow team members to have relationship bonuses with each other while not combined, but wouldn’t give the combined team an undue advantage by having relationship bonuses that can’t be attacked.

Hmmm, yes, Combining mecha is somewhat drafty and limited at the moment. So, let's say, something like this:

(click to show/hide)

You'll notice that I left out the "+2HP per level and team members gain extra upgrades while separated". That's because those were meant for mecha mooks that have crappy machines. But if the members are actual real/super robots, then they don't need the extra stats while separated. Otherwise, this would be a must-take even if you never plan on combining, gets you some extra HP and multiple Upgrades for just one feat.

Combining Team would remain its own separate feat for both Mecha Mooks and representing the 5-team combining robots that have a single form like Voltes/Combatler V.

Arcane/Divine have spells and no maneuvers. Supers/Reals/Captains have maneuvers and no spells. And I'm pretty sure there's a lot of Immediate Action spells out there to pick if you want to go that way.
Probably, but the point is nothing on the Arcane Pilot's List does. Having to spend your only 2nd level Slot choice on picking up something you really should have anyway and Super/Reals got two levels ago sucks, for Spells and Maneuvers to be comparable they have to be well, comparable.
Well not necessarily, otherwise they wouldn't have the same name to start with.

In particular hotblooded warriors/grizzled veterans are supposed to be more adept at suddenly reacting to danger than charismatic reality benders, while said reality benders are more adept at bending reality to their whims (when nobody is shooting/stabbing them directly at least).

And when it comes to spending money to fix things, you realize Real/Supers can buy Spell access to right?
You can also buy maneuver items. Anomander loves doing it.

Actually been working bit by bit on creating a sample world based on our campaign so far, in particular how Parum developed and descended into total war, the different factions competing and how the Android Administration rose to power, while new technologies were researched and some planets of the system blowing up, but hard work is hard.
Cool, need some help with the dragon side? I pretty much wrote the entire history of the Helsing family in my head, parts of it spun from your lore and the rest of it is pretty much how I do everything else. Like discovering of the Staff of Tongues for human transmutation, which excuses how your Monster Classes bypass biology btw, to how spells such as Teleport gave them a massive start in space exploration.
Yeah, I must say I got quite interested in your backstory of dragon nobles in SPACE! and would definetely want to make them a distinctive part of the setting. In my drafts past history there's a member of the Helsing family that would've fallen on disgrace (and thus erased from the family's records to don't interfere with your backstory)  that ended up in Parum and built her own faction that ended playing a significant part on the war. Something ends weaponing a nearby planet to drop it on Parum but another faction leader sacrifices themselves for mutual destruction, saving Parum yet also leaving the way clear for the Android armies to take over.

Not sure if you mean spell level or Arcane Pilot but three spells per either is a nope.jpg. The super/real get only 20/19 maneuvers and some stances from a much more limited list and that's it.
Already anticipated that comment and I already  suggested cutting the "default" list down some more so you'd end up with either the same number of Spells or less, but the Player would have ones they like.  :)

Writing your own Spells may be the way you want to go but you already have a ton of stuff on your plate to alter, tweak, and balance before trying to introduce a bunch of Spells with no sight of where the lines are. Use what you have now and get it working first, and if it's in balance with D&D rather than it's own tune, you won't even have to rewrite Spells (just ban a few key ones).

That would be a lot of bans.

Anyway I know from experience that one of the most annoying things with D&D spellcasters is when they start to stack spells like there's no tomorrow. Just throwing a dispel in combat can grind the game to a halt. If there's 3 chooseable spells per level, chances are that a lot of them will end being buffs and that's bad even if they're aren't broken per se.

Plus, mechas are supposed to be the stars of the show here, not glorified magic enhancers. If the caster pilots end up "as regular D&D casters, just now affect bigger areas", then that's a failure on my book. There's a reason the Divine Pilot still gets guns and the Arcane Pilot still gets punches and familiars with guns and they both get spirits and Pilot Feats. They're both supposed to don't rely fully on spells and still get down and dirty now and then.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on November 03, 2016, 07:44:18 PM
Hmmm, yes, Combining mecha is somewhat drafty and limited at the moment. So, let's say, something like this:

(click to show/hide)

You'll notice that I left out the "+2HP per level and team members gain extra upgrades while separated". That's because those were meant for mecha mooks that have crappy machines. But if the members are actual real/super robots, then they don't need the extra stats while separated. Otherwise, this would be a must-take even if you never plan on combining, gets you some extra HP and multiple Upgrades for just one feat.

Combining Team would remain its own separate feat for both Mecha Mooks and representing the 5-team combining robots that have a single form like Voltes/Combatler V.


That looks great, though I did spot a few typos (it says Pilot Size where I'm fairly sure it should say Pilot Level, for determining the upgrades available)
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on November 03, 2016, 08:32:15 PM
Heats? I approve.

Now get the song out of my head. :P#

Quote
It counts as having the average Pilot Size of its members for determining what those "temporary" upgrades can be. 

Typo found.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on November 03, 2016, 09:01:17 PM
Oh, also, Humungous Ship feat says it gives the battleship 25 more arsenal. should that be another hardpoint?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on November 04, 2016, 01:45:05 AM
You can also buy maneuver items. Anomander loves doing it.
Yeah but technically speaking you cannot use UMD to meet a Maneuver's requirements. So for example, you need to step into the gray area, that some DMS will required permission to even do, of merging two Crowns of the White Raven together if you wanted to learn Iron Heart Surge. Your Maneuvers probably unintentionally (and his probably intentionally) left out those requirements so they didn't have to.

All of that lovely set up inviting exploitation of your homebrew in ways WotC intended to prevent there is still an unfair price adjustment. Like for 12,000 gold a Super Pilot can run around with Persisted Haste on every single round both in and out of combat, all day, for every day during the year. For 15,000gp an Arcane Pilot can use That won't work twice! once per Encounter.

Anyway, as far as plot I'll probably see if I'm awake Sunday and type up a bunch. It may just end up being a bunch of short notes.

That would be a lot of bans.
Oh it's not that bad. Your homebrew already ignores immunities while offering up new immunities, it pretends Ploymorph doesn't exist, deals like ten times the damage D&D's scale does, and you like handling out extra turns too. I'm sure most of what you think you need to ban I could probably find a Class Feature that does the same thing but better.  :P

Like for example since you fear buffs for some reason, in D&D the caster is commonly portrayed as being less armored than the mundane, for example Mage Armor only gives +4 to AC but Full-Plate is double that. In your system the caster's mech is still physically portrayed as weak with less AC, but also less DR, and he gets zero equipment, and the actual armor/shields grant additional bonuses like Damage Reduction, and the caster doesn't even get Mage Armor to compensate.

In general your homebrew really isn't about fairly balancing the classes and avoiding caster surpremacy, but trying to make unfairly everything more powerful than vancian casting and some times that comes across a little odd. Like how many of your Classes grant an Ability Bonus to AC? All of them? But Mage Armor got cut, really?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on November 04, 2016, 09:32:05 AM
Hmmm, yes, Combining mecha is somewhat drafty and limited at the moment. So, let's say, something like this:

(click to show/hide)

You'll notice that I left out the "+2HP per level and team members gain extra upgrades while separated". That's because those were meant for mecha mooks that have crappy machines. But if the members are actual real/super robots, then they don't need the extra stats while separated. Otherwise, this would be a must-take even if you never plan on combining, gets you some extra HP and multiple Upgrades for just one feat.

Combining Team would remain its own separate feat for both Mecha Mooks and representing the 5-team combining robots that have a single form like Voltes/Combatler V.


That looks great, though I did spot a few typos (it says Pilot Size where I'm fairly sure it should say Pilot Level, for determining the upgrades available)

Fixed the typo and added it to main feats section.

Oh, also, Humungous Ship feat says it gives the battleship 25 more arsenal. should that be another hardpoint?

Fixed as well.

You can also buy maneuver items. Anomander loves doing it.
Yeah but technically speaking you cannot use UMD to meet a Maneuver's requirements. So for example, you need to step into the gray area, that some DMS will required permission to even do, of merging two Crowns of the White Raven together if you wanted to learn Iron Heart Surge.
Doesn't UMD allows you to simulate class features?

Your Maneuvers probably unintentionally (and his probably intentionally) left out those requirements so they didn't have to.
Now that you mention that, several of my schools do have anti-itemization clauses.

All of that lovely set up inviting exploitation of your homebrew in ways WotC intended to prevent there is still an unfair price adjustment. Like for 12,000 gold a Super Pilot can run around with Persisted Haste on every single round both in and out of combat, all day, for every day during the year. For 15,000gp an Arcane Pilot can use That won't work twice! once per Encounter.
That's an extremely biased scenario.
1-Haste is 3rd level, That Won't Work Twice is 4th.
2-Maneuver items are the same price for maneuvers between level 4 and 6. So you could get a 6th level Counter for the same price.
3-An all-day Haste item should technically  cost 30k gold (3rd spell level x CL 5 x 2000 GP). I'm sure there's plenty of ways of cheesing the Haste item cost down, but then so there are ways to cheese down the cost of the maneuver item.

That would be a lot of bans.
Oh it's not that bad. Your homebrew already ignores immunities while offering up new immunities, it pretends Ploymorph doesn't exist, deals like ten times the damage D&D's scale does, and you like handling out extra turns too. I'm sure most of what you think you need to ban I could probably find a Class Feature that does the same thing but better.  :P
Thing is, reals/supers get less than three Class features per level.

Also for "damage scale", there's already things like uberchargers and split bows hasted archers. That you often bring up. Heck, a couple pages ago you kept complaing about mecha weapons dealing less damage as size-scaled normal D&D weapons! :p

However another thing that makes casters uber is that they get to outright ignore HP in several ways. Fort or die, Reflex or Die, Will or Die, teleport or die, obscure save or die. Doesn't matter if you have 1 HP or a million along a billion DR. And casters can also make themselves annoyingly impossible to hit (illusions, expendable minions, walls, you name it). If you can target them at all. Once more, doesn't matter if your attack deals a zillion damage if the caster is behind multiple layers of of illusions, barriers, fogs and tentacles each demanding different measures to get through, none of which are damage/to hit bonus.

And it is my experience that any half-competent player will diversify their spell selection as much as possible given half a chance. They're not gonna spend their 3 spells per level on nukes, they're also gonna grab minions and obscure defenses and even more obscure attack means.

Less spell selection is the way of dealing with that. It's the only way of dealing with that.

Like for example since you fear buffs for some reason, in D&D the caster is commonly portrayed as being less armored than the mundane, for example Mage Armor only gives +4 to AC but Full-Plate is double that. In your system the caster's mech is still physically portrayed as weak with less AC, but also less DR, and he gets zero equipment, and the actual armor/shields grant additional bonuses like Damage Reduction, and the caster doesn't even get Mage Armor to compensate.

In general your homebrew really isn't about fairly balancing the classes and avoiding caster surpremacy, but trying to make unfairly everything more powerful than vancian casting and some times that comes across a little odd. Like how many of your Classes grant an Ability Bonus to AC? All of them? But Mage Armor got cut, really?
Funny you pick that example, since Chokabam Armor is a whooping +1 Armor AC bonus. A Real Robot will only get Mage Armor level protection at Arsenal level IV with Ceramic Armor, aka at 10th character level. So yes, an Arcane Pilot who learns Mage Armor means a significant AC bonus for the whole party for half a campaign, and also allows the other pilots to spend their limited Hardpoints on other stuff. Sure, the Arsenal Armors grant some minor DR and Fort bonus, but the AC is still their main advantage.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on November 04, 2016, 12:39:49 PM
Doesn't UMD allows you to simulate class features?
Yes. The Maneuvers Class Feature, and through it per Caster's & Lists, which Disciplines are on your "Class List" if anything were to ask if you have access to White Raven should be included. Maneuvers Ready & Stances Known are also Class Features. But knowing any specific number of White Raven Maneuvers, not so much.

More importantly it's not the item that has the requirement of knowing them, it's the Maneuver.

That's an extremely biased scenario.
1-Haste is 3rd level, That Won't Work Twice is 4th.
Oop, meant to use two lv3s. Ok, well just use the Trapsmith List so Haste is 1st level and that'll make it all better. :p

And "cheesing" the cost down, if you decided crafting should reduce prices or Wish should give free items, applies to both. But you can't exactly find a Maneuver at a lower level on another Martial Adept's List outside of finding strictly more powerful Maneuvers in even more powerful homebrew.

Also for "damage scale", there's already things like uberchargers and split bows hasted archers. That you often bring up. Heck, a couple pages ago you kept complaing about mecha weapons dealing less damage as size-scaled normal D&D weapons! :p
No. That's not what I said and you know it. So not funny. Besides, after hating ranged you turned things into a flying fighter vs Terrasqua fight anyway so whatevs.

Anyway, you're getting shifty there so you're probably realizing your getting backed into a corner. Like banning Polymorph because it's broken and then admitting Ubercharging is broken, but instead you use Ubercharging as an excuse of validating instead of realizing that it and anything based off it should be banned to. Likewise you can't really complain about CC effects, you just threw a party-Grappling effect that ignored FoM, had Dimensional Anchor, didn't even need an Attack Roll, ignored Miss Chances, and was from something so massive I believe one of our party members couldn't even make a Check. At least you can Jaunt out of Solid Fog, or ignore it with FoM, or brute force your way through it with multiple Move Actions (or stuff like Sudden Leap). Like I said "ignores immunities while offering up new immunities", in this case your homebrew Grapple is virtually immune to all forms of defense against it and immune to all but one way to get out of it.

And why on earth would you ban tentacles anyway?
I've seen your choice in images for your homebrew. It'd fit, into things perfectly.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on November 05, 2016, 12:17:58 AM
So, Oslecamo, just noticed a typo in Born to Fight that changes the meaning. it says "You can also inflict nondamage effects (both ill or benefical) in a mecha even if you're on foot and smaller than them."

It should probably say "You can also inflict nondamage effects (both ill or benefical) on a mecha even if you're on foot and smaller than them."
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on November 05, 2016, 01:05:23 AM
Stuff

The numbers on the Mob stuff don't seem to be where they should be, reasonably. Not part of the mecha rules, though.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on November 05, 2016, 01:39:41 AM
The numbers on the Mob stuff don't seem to be where they should be, reasonably. Not part of the mecha rules, though.
On the Spell banning we're not exactly talking about Super Robot Wars per se, more of Ols's concepts in general.

And I know it's part of his Improved Monster Classes. The Darkweaver, Bebilith, Gray Linnorm, Animated Object (most likely what the mini mechs were), Roper, Tendriculos, Leng Spider, Shambling Mound, Wild Hunt, Ice Golem, Half-Golem, & the Greel (plus a few others) all go the extreme of Dimensional Anchor, nearly every single one of them negate Freedom of Movement, and reach Large or bigger Sizes. The ones that hit Huge auto-win their Grapple Checks vs Medium Creatures effectively making them inescapable unavoidable TPK attacks unless your Touch AC is pumped to unimaginable heights which is about the only way to deal with it in sort of applying more Ols's homebrew to the situation (like super's you can't touch me counters). And this is just one facet of Ols's love for totally raping people in a game, and some how he wants to preach Save-or-Dies are terrible because they at least offer a Save. >.>

His tweaks are not more balanced, just different and arguably less so.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on November 05, 2016, 11:44:09 AM
The numbers on the Mob stuff don't seem to be where they should be, reasonably. Not part of the mecha rules, though.
On the Spell banning we're not exactly talking about Super Robot Wars per se, more of Ols's concepts in general.

And I know it's part of his Improved Monster Classes. The Darkweaver, Bebilith, Gray Linnorm, Animated Object (most likely what the mini mechs were), Roper, Tendriculos, Leng Spider, Shambling Mound, Wild Hunt, Ice Golem, Half-Golem, & the Greel (plus a few others) all go the extreme of Dimensional Anchor, nearly every single one of them negate Freedom of Movement, and reach Large or bigger Sizes. The ones that hit Huge auto-win their Grapple Checks vs Medium Creatures effectively making them inescapable unavoidable TPK attacks unless your Touch AC is pumped to unimaginable heights which is about the only way to deal with it in sort of applying more Ols's homebrew to the situation (like super's you can't touch me counters). And this is just one facet of Ols's love for totally raping people in a game, and some how he wants to preach Save-or-Dies are terrible because they at least offer a Save. >.>

His tweaks are not more balanced, just different and arguably less so.

Maybe if Freedom of Movement didn't *completely negate* an entire combat style it wouldn't be important to ignore it? If perhaps it only provided a bonus to defensive grapple rather than just completely ignoring grapple? Sorry, that's just a thing that bugs me. Casters already too strong, and they can just ignore entire builds with single spells
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on November 05, 2016, 11:58:22 AM
So, Oslecamo, just noticed a typo in Born to Fight that changes the meaning. it says "You can also inflict nondamage effects (both ill or benefical) in a mecha even if you're on foot and smaller than them."

It should probably say "You can also inflict nondamage effects (both ill or benefical) on a mecha even if you're on foot and smaller than them."
I'm not a native english speaker. I'm afraid that type of detail goes beyond my grammar knowledge and so if you could explain the difference in this case I would be thankful.

The numbers on the Mob stuff don't seem to be where they should be, reasonably. Not part of the mecha rules, though.
On the Spell banning we're not exactly talking about Super Robot Wars per se, more of Ols's concepts in general.

And I know it's part of his Improved Monster Classes. The Darkweaver, Bebilith, Gray Linnorm, Animated Object (most likely what the mini mechs were), Roper, Tendriculos, Leng Spider, Shambling Mound, Wild Hunt, Ice Golem, Half-Golem, & the Greel (plus a few others) all go the extreme of Dimensional Anchor, nearly every single one of them negate Freedom of Movement, and reach Large or bigger Sizes. The ones that hit Huge auto-win their Grapple Checks vs Medium Creatures effectively making them inescapable unavoidable TPK attacks unless your Touch AC is pumped to unimaginable heights which is about the only way to deal with it in sort of applying more Ols's homebrew to the situation (like super's you can't touch me counters). And this is just one facet of Ols's love for totally raping people in a game, and some how he wants to preach Save-or-Dies are terrible because they at least offer a Save. >.>

His tweaks are not more balanced, just different and arguably less so.

What's the save against whifing your grapple attempts on Mirror Images?
What's the save of automatically failing your grapple against Heart of Water at 5th level (3 levels before the ignore-FoM of my monster classes comes online).
What's the save against trying to reach the mage's that flying above you?
What's the save against abrupt jaunt? (6-7 levels before most people can get Dimensional Anchor).
What's the save against the caster just using magic to turn themselves even bigger with a massive Str boost and auto-beat everybody else's grapple? Even if polymorph's out the table, plenty of other buffs for that around.

By level 8 ignoring Freedom of Movement and Dimensional Anchor is the bare minimum for a grappling build not to be rendered irrevant by the mage's secondary abilities, or even abilities they had from the start of the game. And even then it's an uphill struggle. You still have to keep up with the mage's superior mobility and get through their illusions and then pray they didn't debuff you into a wimp nor buffed themselves into godlike mode.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on November 05, 2016, 12:02:36 PM
So, Oslecamo, just noticed a typo in Born to Fight that changes the meaning. it says "You can also inflict nondamage effects (both ill or benefical) in a mecha even if you're on foot and smaller than them."

It should probably say "You can also inflict nondamage effects (both ill or benefical) on a mecha even if you're on foot and smaller than them."
I'm not a native english speaker. I'm afraid that type of detail goes beyond my grammar knowledge and so if you could explain the difference in this case I would be thankful.


The first case says you can inflict those effects while inside a mech, the second case says you can inflict those effects to a mech. I've noticed you also make this mistake when talking about stances a lot. On generally refers to being above something, or doing something to something, while in means inside of, or using. Does that help?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Rekmond on November 05, 2016, 08:46:59 PM
actually the odd wording on the first seems to imply that you can inflict an effect on a person inside a mech? Because "In a mecha" and "While on foot and smaller" are entirely different things to my understanding.

Using 'On a mecha' implies that the effect is directed at the mecha itself, even if you are ant sized in comparison.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on November 05, 2016, 11:16:55 PM
actually the odd wording on the first seems to imply that you can inflict an effect on a person inside a mech? Because "In a mecha" and "While on foot and smaller" are entirely different things to my understanding.

Using 'On a mecha' implies that the effect is directed at the mecha itself, even if you are ant sized in comparison.

Yeah, but there's nothing currently stopping you from affecting people inside a mecha anyway, only the mecha itself
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on November 05, 2016, 11:32:51 PM
I think a mecha blocks line of effect and sight to the pilot, no?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Rekmond on November 05, 2016, 11:35:33 PM
I think a mecha blocks line of effect and sight to the pilot, no?

As far as I know.

makes it really annoying to hit your target (cockpit) with that quiver of nice Brilliant Energy Arrows.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on November 06, 2016, 01:56:02 AM
Maybe if Freedom of Movement didn't *completely negate* an entire combat style it wouldn't be important to ignore it?
Who said Grapple was a "combat style"? It's an optional attack, one of four special types excluding what attacks are supposed to do, that all creatures in the game can use and PCs have the biggest disadvantage in this area compared to larger creatures that have a huge advantage. Immunity to Grapple is a balancing mechanic designed to increase the survivability of PCs.

Casters already too strong, and they can just ignore entire builds with single spells
Actually, most of everyone's top protection Spells such Protection From Evil, Death Ward, Mindblank, Anti-Magic Field, Dispel, and yes Freedom of Movement because Grapple is just one tiny aspect of it, and so on are all anti-caster things that a mundane typically doesn't even care if his target has.

But they in every single way make that mundane more effective at dealing with caster than if he couldn't use any of those and that is utterly inarguable. Banning them actually makes casters even more powerful than you already perceive them to be.



I guess it's Q&A time.
Q: What's the save against whifing your grapple attempts on Mirror Images?
A: Blindsense, totally negates Mirror Image since the figments relay on sight, and your Mechs can all have it.
Also Scent which is available as a 1st level Tiger Claw Stance and trained dogs.

Q: What's the save of automatically failing your grapple against Heart of Water at 5th level?
A: Seeing how you've literally chosen to ice sake up hill to prove how badass you can optimize, try optimizing some more.
Also your Attack Action just made them burn a 4th level Spell which is a pretty fair trade seeing how you probably get more than four of those per day, or in a single Full-Attack. And if you were seriously about Grapple you'd probably have an Improved Grab like ability. So the the attempted Grapple is actually just an added bonus after dealing your full damage and trying to kill them anyway.

Q: What's the save against trying to reach the mage's that flying above you?
A1: Remind Ols to stop hating ranged weapons before he forgets they exist.
A2: Try flying after them using a flying mount that costs less than 200gp and lasts longer than five minutes.

Q: What's the save against abrupt jaunt?
A: If you're using a Ranged Weapon, just continue to shoot them in the face anyway. It's almost like ranged weapons are a very important and integral part of balancing the game or something. If you're melee, seeing how this is a very specific Class Feature that one and only one Class gets in the entire game I'll just throw out a Feat to counter it, Martial Study[sudden leap]. Also, than range on that is only 10ft right? Reach+5ft step or the 10ft step Training dummy work too.

Q: What's the save against the caster just using magic to turn themselves even bigger with a massive Str boost?
A: Giggle manically at how stupid the player is. Then, if he wasted an action on it, stab him in the face. If he Persisted, then it's probably a high powered game where you can buy your own Str Boosts and stab him in the face anyway. Otherwise, apply liberal usage a Ring of Freedom of Movement which is one of the contributing factors to why Spellcasters should not use Polymorph to turn into brutes and try to pretend they are a Martial Adept.

I'm not necessarily saying D&D is balanced. However this thread has taught me that you are extremely short sighted. You don't even pay attention to over half of the rules because they don't thematically appeal to you, you don't view the rules as a whole, you can't see how things connect, you don't even try to follow the chain reaction that happens each time you alter a rule, and perhaps the greatest thing of all; you do not create a plan or even envision the end goal before approaching a subject. Like if you wanted creatures to bypass a mundane's anti-supernatural gear to reinforce caster supremacy, why didn't you at least try to remain consistent? Every other immune-bypasser respects immunity and nerfs it into a bonus so why doesn't FoM in your homebrew just negate Size benefits as it's type of bonus?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on November 06, 2016, 02:34:45 AM
Updated the Mecha Engineer to the new hardpoint system. Added a restriction on accessories now since the penalties are out. Added the volatile weapon option as well. Maintenance/Reinforce now grant additional support options by allowing the engineer to use the kit options on other mechas with a standard action at touch range.


@Osle
Sentient upgrades: Does Imprint implies by "stats" that it gets only the ability scores of the pilot or is it meant to include all his bonuses to just about everything, as what may be granted by class features (which aren't imprinted). Supporting mentions that the bonus is granted to a pilot currently piloting it with an immediate action, but it can only act while the pilot isn't inside the mecha. Usually you need to be within the mecha to be piloting it. Unless by "currently piloting it" it refers to the ownership of the mecha, or the last pilot to have piloted it. It isn't clear.

Built-in weapons: Just to clarify, when a mecha gets an arsenal weapon, is it built-in or treated as a regular weapon? I've always assumed arsenal weapons aren't built-in. I now also recall that you also stated once that a mecha doesn't get unarmed strikes... would a pilot gestalting with Monk or similar then get no mecha kungfu skills? I've seen a lot of mecha do martial arts, is all.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on November 06, 2016, 03:16:33 AM
Updated the Mecha Engineer to the new hardpoint system. Added a restriction on accessories now since the penalties are out. Added the volatile weapon option as well. Maintenance/Reinforce now grant additional support options by allowing the engineer to use the kit options on other mechas with a standard action at touch range.
Any plans to write Custom Soul Accessories (as mentioned in the Soul of the Mechanic feat), or are those still a long way off?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on November 06, 2016, 12:31:28 PM
I might. There's plenty more to add to it though I'd likely have to read a whole bunch of reference material for inspiration and names. Some branches need more options too so I'll probably focus on those already there before adding a whole new one. Ideally there would be 2-4 options per arsenal level depending on the branch, so as you can see I'm still pretty under.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on November 06, 2016, 10:46:09 PM
We just tested out HEATS in my campaign as an opponent, and we had some thoughts on it.
It’s not something the GM should use in a synchronous game (i.e. not play by post) if they intend to make use of the transforming aspect. I found it incredibly tedious to switch back and forth between the different forms. Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoyed it, it’s just that it took up a lot of time (the combat lasted about twice as long as a normal combat despite having only one effective opponent).
Also, it resulted in a question. Can spirits like Prayer (which affect “you or your mech”) affect other pilots in the same mech?

And from my players:
Quote from: Mecha Engineer player
Feat worked well mechanically. Action economy was a good tradeoff for having multiple spirit pools and more HP. After fighting against it, I’m excited to gattai up with the rest of my party. No issues with the feat, no suggestions to make on it.

Quote from: Arcane Pilot player
Feat use synergizes very well. Letting multiple spirits effect one mech is evil, but cool. The prayer question comes from my actions; I did a small amount of debuffing on individuals pilots and only one had prayer apparently. Now, semi related question (happened during combat): Since a spectral hand is incorporeal, can it be used to target individual pilots? In game I used it to touch a pilot that was currently not piloting the mech.

Quote from: Super Pilot player
The versatility that the multi-form HEATS brought to the game was a lot of fun, but it took a looooong time to play. The increased effective spirit pool meant that they were active the whole time, while the party spent a lot more time saving up EN and SP. Overall I think the reduced action economy for more power and options is a fair tradeoff

Also, there's a dodge booster in every accessory grade except 3. is it intentional that grade 3 doesn't have one?

And Anomander, is it intentional that Mecha Engineer's Energy Shield is just plain better than the G Wall at arsenal VI?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on November 07, 2016, 11:14:50 AM
Quote
And Anomander, is it intentional that Mecha Engineer's Energy Shield is just plain better than the G Wall at arsenal VI?
Yes. At Arsenal VI there is already an accessory that grants G-Wall. I could give it a different twist at VI too instead.
Also, updated Maintenance and Reinforce since the support arsenal options were just changed to be usable on other mechas at range by default. They now grant extra range with them.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on November 09, 2016, 12:41:23 AM
Oslecamo, I've got a couple questions about various transforming robots. So, supers without fly speeds gain a fly speed equal to land speed if in jet mode. Fair enough. it's +50% (and Perfect) if they already have a fly speed. That sounds reasonable. Lets take a look at transforming reals. Holy crap the Astelion gets a fivefold increase in speed with its jet mode. The Wildraubtier gets its speed multiplied by 7.5. Sure, they're limited to only built in weapons in jet mode...but Super Robots are even more limited, to just one built in weapon. Supers get +4 dodge and -2 nat armor, while Reals get +2 doge. Is there a particular reason why Reals get such overwhelmingly better jet modes? I mean, sure, Supers tend to have better in-builts, but the Astelion's Star Breakers, at least, are incredibly good. I don't particularly mind (as it hasn't come up in my campaign, and as we don't actually have any normal Real Pilots, it's unlikely to), but I would like to know why this is the case, and if it's intentional.

While I'm on the topic of transforming Reals, can we get an option for generics to transform? I kinda want to make the Valhawk  :)
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Rekmond on November 09, 2016, 01:03:57 AM
Personally I think part of it is the Real vs Super ideology. Reals are all about superior gear, there's no arguing that. That is the product of tons of R&D and testing before it ever gets implemented full scale.

A Super Pilot will have lower standards because they often don't wait for something to be completely cleared, they need it NOW, and will keep it working with blood, sweat, and tears.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on November 09, 2016, 06:17:49 AM
We just tested out HEATS in my campaign as an opponent, and we had some thoughts on it.
It’s not something the GM should use in a synchronous game (i.e. not play by post) if they intend to make use of the transforming aspect. I found it incredibly tedious to switch back and forth between the different forms. Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoyed it, it’s just that it took up a lot of time (the combat lasted about twice as long as a normal combat despite having only one effective opponent).
Out of curiosity, did you stat up the different transformations beforehand? If you're doing it on the fly yeah it's gonna take time.

Also, it resulted in a question.
 Can spirits like Prayer (which affect “you or your mech”) affect other pilots in the same mech?
Well before they technically couldn't but a team pilot patching others with Prayer is intended so updated that.


Quote from: Arcane Pilot player
Feat use synergizes very well. Letting multiple spirits effect one mech is evil, but cool. The prayer question comes from my actions; I did a small amount of debuffing on individuals pilots and only one had prayer apparently. Now, semi related question (happened during combat): Since a spectral hand is incorporeal, can it be used to target individual pilots? In game I used it to touch a pilot that was currently not piloting the mech.
That's something that's up to the DM and situatin. You would need something to know where the pilot is located and stuff.

Quote from: Super Pilot player
The versatility that the multi-form HEATS brought to the game was a lot of fun, but it took a looooong time to play. The increased effective spirit pool meant that they were active the whole time, while the party spent a lot more time saving up EN and SP. Overall I think the reduced action economy for more power and options is a fair tradeoff
Thanks! Always great to hear play reports.

Quote from: Super Pilot player
Also, there's a dodge booster in every accessory grade except 3. is it intentional that grade 3 doesn't have one?
Fixed.

Oslecamo, I've got a couple questions about various transforming robots. So, supers without fly speeds gain a fly speed equal to land speed if in jet mode. Fair enough. it's +50% (and Perfect) if they already have a fly speed. That sounds reasonable. Lets take a look at transforming reals. Holy crap the Astelion gets a fivefold increase in speed with its jet mode. The Wildraubtier gets its speed multiplied by 7.5. Sure, they're limited to only built in weapons in jet mode...but Super Robots are even more limited, to just one built in weapon. Supers get +4 dodge and -2 nat armor, while Reals get +2 doge. Is there a particular reason why Reals get such overwhelmingly better jet modes? I mean, sure, Supers tend to have better in-builts, but the Astelion's Star Breakers, at least, are incredibly good. I don't particularly mind (as it hasn't come up in my campaign, and as we don't actually have any normal Real Pilots, it's unlikely to), but I would like to know why this is the case, and if it's intentional.
Intentional since "gotta go fast" is something a lot more characteristic of Real Robot shows. Yes sure Supers do it sometimes, but it's only to get closer faster and then melee it out.


While I'm on the topic of transforming Reals, can we get an option for generics to transform? I kinda want to make the Valhawk  :)
No to transforming generics. There's multiclass with super robot for that. But added Valhawk at grade III. And R-1 at grade I. May as well stat up a transforming real for each level.

Personally I think part of it is the Real vs Super ideology. Reals are all about superior gear, there's no arguing that. That is the product of tons of R&D and testing before it ever gets implemented full scale.

A Super Pilot will have lower standards because they often don't wait for something to be completely cleared, they need it NOW, and will keep it working with blood, sweat, and tears.
Heh, true in some cases, but the reverse in others.

Several Super shows have the titular robot being something really old that was refined for decades/centuries waiting for the big bad to show up. Heck, Great Mazinger even had their pilot trained from birth for the job!

While the iconic Gundam often has unstable prototypes being deployed with almost no testing because the enemy army is invading right now and is do or die. SEED has the coordinators coding the machine's operative systems in the mid of battle! Although then Char pilots a good old Zaku II with just a red paint job. Because red ones go faster. That's something indeed researched and tested in a large scale, just ask Gundam 00 where eventually everybody is doing it, mooks included.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Rekmond on November 09, 2016, 07:15:43 AM
Fair, I think my logic holds better with more mass produced models. Gundams may be real robots (almost always), but they are usually as unique as their pilots. Most mass produced models never really get a chance to shine within gundam outside some notable times when given an amazing pilot.

Char in a Zaku causing people nightmares and the Gouf piloted by Norris Packard among my personal favorites.

And while a different series, I have played the Dynasty Warriors Gundam series, and seeing Char's Red Zaku being taken up against a set of Trans AM Gundams and win simply due to being able to hit and run on a scale outside anything else in the game.......is horrifying. Even the Reborns couldn't touch it. If the Gundams hit it, it may as well have been made of paper mache, tested that, but it could enter and clear an area in seconds.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on November 09, 2016, 07:36:44 AM
Yeah, really need to do a "Char" prc. Your mecha stops upgrading, but you learn to pilot it so well you can dodge/hit everything.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on November 09, 2016, 10:38:13 AM
We just tested out HEATS in my campaign as an opponent, and we had some thoughts on it.
It’s not something the GM should use in a synchronous game (i.e. not play by post) if they intend to make use of the transforming aspect. I found it incredibly tedious to switch back and forth between the different forms. Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoyed it, it’s just that it took up a lot of time (the combat lasted about twice as long as a normal combat despite having only one effective opponent).
Out of curiosity, did you stat up the different transformations beforehand? If you're doing it on the fly yeah it's gonna take time.


I did. The issue was more that I wasn't able to memorize all the different options, because level 7 characters in this system have a *lot* of options. Also, recording changes to spirit pools was awkward (which happened because the combined unit had Soul of the Machine)

Is the reason the Counter feat can't be used to trigger counters just balance? Because I've got players that want to be able to use multiple counters (maneuvers) in one round.
Also, Why is the soulgain listed in the real robots description but not the chart, and vice-versa for the arkgain. Are they intended to be the same unit?
Also, the R-1 is listed as the R1 in the real robot list. either both instances should be R-1 or both should be R1 (this is bugging one of my players).
Also, the Rapiecage doesn't have a maneuverability listed for its fly speed

Also, you commented on making a transforming mecha for all arsenal grades. some suggestions my players came up with: Altairlion (which would of course need a corresponding Vegalion), Wildraubtier Schnabel, and ART-1 (which would also serve to fix my minor gripe about "why can't the R-1 have T-Link Knuckle?)

Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on November 09, 2016, 12:27:26 PM
The Alteisen Riese seems to be overpowered in comparison to other options. It has more HP than is possible on a super robot (the designated tanks) at 400 as compared to the max HP on a super robot being 315 (without Great Plating, which brings it up to 390). It has more natural armor than a super can have at 22 as compared to the 12 a super can have (without Great Plating, which brings it up to 18). It has more DR than a super can have at 40 as compared to 35 (without Great Plating, which does bring it up to 48, if it’s colossal). It has the same EN as a super without batteries, but supers tend to be more energy intensive than reals anyway. It has a +7 bonus to saves, while a super can only have at most +6. It has 125Mu movement speed, while a super's top speed is 85Mu (without Great Agility, which does bring it up to 140, if it's colossal). It has five hardpoints, more than any other unit in the conversion save the Ashsaber. Its weapons, likewise, are incredibly powerful. its Revolving Bunker would take 9 super robot upgrades to recreate (roughly), and that's not including its to hit bonus. While this is partially balanced out by its low ammo count, it's still incredibly strong. The Claymore Avalanche is also a very powerful weapon. It's stronger than anything a super robot can have save a fully Mighty'd twinned heavy weapon, and even that will consume much more resources than the Claymores.

As for its comparisons with reals, it has the same net AC bonus as its closest competitor in the role of melee real, the Banpreios, four times the move speed, 33% more HP, only 5 less EN (and only has one EN consuming weapon), +2 points of save bonus, +15 arsenal space, +3 hardpoints, and 5 extra DR. As for a weapon comparison, while Altered Full Burst does have a massive range increase over the Claymore Avalanche, it does less damage and can only be fired twice before needing recharging, as compared to the claymore's four shots. similarly, while the T-Link Tronium Edge is much stronger than the Revolving Bunker, it can only be fired once as opposed to six times. Ranged combat is the only area the Alteisen Riese truly suffers, where it is greatly outdone by the Astranagant

If this is not an intentional design aspect, I would recommend reducing its capabilities in either defenses or weapons, or improving its competitors. If this is an intentional design aspect, would you please explain why?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on November 12, 2016, 12:52:11 PM
We just tested out HEATS in my campaign as an opponent, and we had some thoughts on it.
It’s not something the GM should use in a synchronous game (i.e. not play by post) if they intend to make use of the transforming aspect. I found it incredibly tedious to switch back and forth between the different forms. Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoyed it, it’s just that it took up a lot of time (the combat lasted about twice as long as a normal combat despite having only one effective opponent).
Out of curiosity, did you stat up the different transformations beforehand? If you're doing it on the fly yeah it's gonna take time.


I did. The issue was more that I wasn't able to memorize all the different options, because level 7 characters in this system have a *lot* of options. Also, recording changes to spirit pools was awkward (which happened because the combined unit had Soul of the Machine)
Well the last bit it's not my fault since it's 4th party material. :P

Is the reason the Counter feat can't be used to trigger counters just balance? Because I've got players that want to be able to use multiple counters (maneuvers) in one round.
Balance yes. There's some pretty powerful counter maneuvers around.

Also, Why is the soulgain listed in the real robots description but not the chart, and vice-versa for the arkgain. Are they intended to be the same unit?
Also, the R-1 is listed as the R1 in the real robot list. either both instances should be R-1 or both should be R1 (this is bugging one of my players).
Also, the Rapiecage doesn't have a maneuverability listed for its fly speed
Typos fixed.

Also, you commented on making a transforming mecha for all arsenal grades. some suggestions my players came up with: Altairlion (which would of course need a corresponding Vegalion), Wildraubtier Schnabel, and ART-1 (which would also serve to fix my minor gripe about "why can't the R-1 have T-Link Knuckle?)
Well, because it's a grade I mecha, and also because it can be represented by maneuvers, in particular since it's supposed to be Ryusei's own technique. If I remember correctly "normal" pilots can't even use it if you switch machines around. But otherwise those are good suggestions on reals to tackle next.

The Alteisen Riese seems to be overpowered in comparison to other options. It has more HP than is possible on a super robot (the designated tanks) at 400 as compared to the max HP on a super robot being 315 (without Great Plating, which brings it up to 390). It has more natural armor than a super can have at 22 as compared to the 12 a super can have (without Great Plating, which brings it up to 18). It has more DR than a super can have at 40 as compared to 35 (without Great Plating, which does bring it up to 48, if it’s colossal). It has the same EN as a super without batteries, but supers tend to be more energy intensive than reals anyway. It has a +7 bonus to saves, while a super can only have at most +6. It has 125Mu movement speed, while a super's top speed is 85Mu (without Great Agility, which does bring it up to 140, if it's colossal). It has five hardpoints, more than any other unit in the conversion save the Ashsaber. Its weapons, likewise, are incredibly powerful. its Revolving Bunker would take 9 super robot upgrades to recreate (roughly), and that's not including its to hit bonus. While this is partially balanced out by its low ammo count, it's still incredibly strong. The Claymore Avalanche is also a very powerful weapon. It's stronger than anything a super robot can have save a fully Mighty'd twinned heavy weapon, and even that will consume much more resources than the Claymores.

As for its comparisons with reals, it has the same net AC bonus as its closest competitor in the role of melee real, the Banpreios, four times the move speed, 33% more HP, only 5 less EN (and only has one EN consuming weapon), +2 points of save bonus, +15 arsenal space, +3 hardpoints, and 5 extra DR. As for a weapon comparison, while Altered Full Burst does have a massive range increase over the Claymore Avalanche, it does less damage and can only be fired twice before needing recharging, as compared to the claymore's four shots. similarly, while the T-Link Tronium Edge is much stronger than the Revolving Bunker, it can only be fired once as opposed to six times. Ranged combat is the only area the Alteisen Riese truly suffers, where it is greatly outdone by the Astranagant

If this is not an intentional design aspect, I would recommend reducing its capabilities in either defenses or weapons, or improving its competitors. If this is an intentional design aspect, would you please explain why?

Look at my avatar.

Ahem, the Alteisen Riese has the most HP/DR/ammo along because its design proccess basically was "add ALL the armor plating/bullets!". For Juddecca's sake, the Alteisen Riese has two tesla engines in-built just to be able to walk with all the weight it's carrying around! Do notice it has the worst Dodge around besides the Alteisen itself.

Anyway the other level VII reals may be lagging behind a bit, so I'll review them a bit and check ways to buff them as needed when I'm not half-asleep anymore.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on November 12, 2016, 02:10:22 PM
The Pinning property reduces the speed by half for normal weapons and by 1/4 for heavy weapons. Usually the heavy weapons have a stronger effect so perhaps you meant it to be reduced by 3/4 or reduced to 1/4 (same thing).

For Peace Princess, the ability description for Rags to Royalty V and VI are listed as IV and VV.
Does Peace Princess multiclass with other stuff as a Super Pilot? Same for the Arcane Pilot. (AP multclasses with Super Pilot clearly though to as clearly with other stuff).
Same with the Divine Pilot multiclassing as a Real Pilot would.

A typo: "Divine Pilot levels stack with Real Pilot levels for determining your SuperReal Robot level."

Also, I notice that PP and the Arcane Pilot mention taking their super robot from the Super Robot List. While there is indeed a "Super Robots List", it isn't really much of a list such as there is for the Real Robots. The Super Robots get a progression and upgrade points based on their super pilot class level so it would probably be clearer and simpler to simply have their levels treated as super pilot levels for the purpose of determining upgrade points and SRobot progression, then applying the weaker modifiers to its stats. It doesn't apply as well as it does for the Divine Pilot, from which this entry was probably copied.

The arcane pilot mentions getting half Arsenal space and Hardpoints(rounded up). The super robot doesn't get any hardpoint by default so it is now redundant. Considering they only get 4 arsenal space, the option to swap for full arsenal space is a bit strange.

Quote
...thus having no Arsenal space leftover, and actually have to sacrifice armor, ending up with 3/5 HP, Energy, Nat armor and DR of “regular” versions (minimum -1 at each of those stats)
Is that meant to include the increases from upgrades or only the base stats? Such as hyperdimensional storage granting no arsenal space (but can still add a hardpoint) and and Plating granting 6 hp instead of 10. And less nat armor/DR.

Her Mercy ability's second effect upon being reduced to 1 hp doesn't do much against targets that aren't mecha. It can however reduce someone to 5 mu (30-ft). Is there supposed to be a difference between the 2nd and 9th effect?

Also, some Peace Princess abilities may need prerequisites. Such as not being able to get higher spell levels before getting the earlier ones, or granting arsenal access of IV before granting the lower ones. The ability to grant so many other mechas access to the higher level arsenal options is probably too strong though. Instead of full access, it should maybe be a specific amount of arsenal option picks, split between any amount of different mecha. The number of picks limited by the number of times the ability is selected, including those for the lower arsenal levels.

Might also want to clarify what the PP counts as for spirits. Maybe ship captain considering the rest of her kit.
Speaking of which, the ship captain doesn't have any spirit that has a spirit cost that is low enough to be used as a first spirit. They are practically forced to take another class' spirit, which is weird.

Heats: 
Quote
...gains all of the Super Robot upgrades of its members, plus 1 "temporary" Upgrade Point per Team member  that only apply while combined. It counts as having the average Pilot Level of its members for determining what those "temporary" upgrades can be.
Not sure how this is supposed to work. As is it seems to stack all the super upgrades and then add a few extra ones that depends only on who the lead pilot is. But is this combination bypassing the usual maximum of upgrade points per option?
To be sure I got this right, for example; Level 2 SR with plating 2 combining with another Level 2 SR with plating 2 gets Plating 4 with 2 temporary upgrade points that can again be put into plating 2 (with plating 3 for the temporary points being impossible even if there was a third SR in the combination since their average pilot level of 2 has a max of 2)?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on November 12, 2016, 02:24:02 PM
We just tested out HEATS in my campaign as an opponent, and we had some thoughts on it.
It’s not something the GM should use in a synchronous game (i.e. not play by post) if they intend to make use of the transforming aspect. I found it incredibly tedious to switch back and forth between the different forms. Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoyed it, it’s just that it took up a lot of time (the combat lasted about twice as long as a normal combat despite having only one effective opponent).
Out of curiosity, did you stat up the different transformations beforehand? If you're doing it on the fly yeah it's gonna take time.


I did. The issue was more that I wasn't able to memorize all the different options, because level 7 characters in this system have a *lot* of options. Also, recording changes to spirit pools was awkward (which happened because the combined unit had Soul of the Machine)
Well the last bit it's not my fault since it's 4th party material. :P

Is the reason the Counter feat can't be used to trigger counters just balance? Because I've got players that want to be able to use multiple counters (maneuvers) in one round.
Balance yes. There's some pretty powerful counter maneuvers around.

Also, Why is the soulgain listed in the real robots description but not the chart, and vice-versa for the arkgain. Are they intended to be the same unit?
Also, the R-1 is listed as the R1 in the real robot list. either both instances should be R-1 or both should be R1 (this is bugging one of my players).
Also, the Rapiecage doesn't have a maneuverability listed for its fly speed
Typos fixed.

Also, you commented on making a transforming mecha for all arsenal grades. some suggestions my players came up with: Altairlion (which would of course need a corresponding Vegalion), Wildraubtier Schnabel, and ART-1 (which would also serve to fix my minor gripe about "why can't the R-1 have T-Link Knuckle?)
Well, because it's a grade I mecha, and also because it can be represented by maneuvers, in particular since it's supposed to be Ryusei's own technique. If I remember correctly "normal" pilots can't even use it if you switch machines around. But otherwise those are good suggestions on reals to tackle next.

The Alteisen Riese seems to be overpowered in comparison to other options. It has more HP than is possible on a super robot (the designated tanks) at 400 as compared to the max HP on a super robot being 315 (without Great Plating, which brings it up to 390). It has more natural armor than a super can have at 22 as compared to the 12 a super can have (without Great Plating, which brings it up to 18). It has more DR than a super can have at 40 as compared to 35 (without Great Plating, which does bring it up to 48, if it’s colossal). It has the same EN as a super without batteries, but supers tend to be more energy intensive than reals anyway. It has a +7 bonus to saves, while a super can only have at most +6. It has 125Mu movement speed, while a super's top speed is 85Mu (without Great Agility, which does bring it up to 140, if it's colossal). It has five hardpoints, more than any other unit in the conversion save the Ashsaber. Its weapons, likewise, are incredibly powerful. its Revolving Bunker would take 9 super robot upgrades to recreate (roughly), and that's not including its to hit bonus. While this is partially balanced out by its low ammo count, it's still incredibly strong. The Claymore Avalanche is also a very powerful weapon. It's stronger than anything a super robot can have save a fully Mighty'd twinned heavy weapon, and even that will consume much more resources than the Claymores.

As for its comparisons with reals, it has the same net AC bonus as its closest competitor in the role of melee real, the Banpreios, four times the move speed, 33% more HP, only 5 less EN (and only has one EN consuming weapon), +2 points of save bonus, +15 arsenal space, +3 hardpoints, and 5 extra DR. As for a weapon comparison, while Altered Full Burst does have a massive range increase over the Claymore Avalanche, it does less damage and can only be fired twice before needing recharging, as compared to the claymore's four shots. similarly, while the T-Link Tronium Edge is much stronger than the Revolving Bunker, it can only be fired once as opposed to six times. Ranged combat is the only area the Alteisen Riese truly suffers, where it is greatly outdone by the Astranagant

If this is not an intentional design aspect, I would recommend reducing its capabilities in either defenses or weapons, or improving its competitors. If this is an intentional design aspect, would you please explain why?

Look at my avatar.

Ahem, the Alteisen Riese has the most HP/DR/ammo along because its design proccess basically was "add ALL the armor plating/bullets!". For Juddecca's sake, the Alteisen Riese has two tesla engines in-built just to be able to walk with all the weight it's carrying around! Do notice it has the worst Dodge around besides the Alteisen itself.

Anyway the other level VII reals may be lagging behind a bit, so I'll review them a bit and check ways to buff them as needed when I'm not half-asleep anymore.

Responses respectively:
No, it's your material. It's near the bottom of the super robot upgrade list.

That's reasonable.

Thank you.

Not sure which maneuver, but that makes sense.

Just because Alt has the most armor/plating/bullets etc... does not mean it should be better at what super robots do than super robots. Don't get me wrong, I love Alt, but it renders the Super Pilot class basically moot at that level, aside from Burning Justice maneuvers.

Other than that:
Is it intentional that Real Pilots get 7 spirits when everyone else gets 6?
Peace Princess doesn't have Spirited at level 1 on the chart. Is this intentional?
Is it intentional that Einst Queen and Ship Captain do not get any SP from first level?
Also, Peace Princess's "Sweet Princess" option is kinda silly. I see the intent behind it, but it means if you can survive three attacks from an enemy, they're no longer an enemy, with no save allowed, and it's not mind-affecting so it works even on things like oozes (unless I'm missing something)
the Einst Queen's ability "Queen's Will" says it allows any biodrones controlled to use the Einst Queen's BAB "if better", but biodrones don't have a BAB. is this intentional, or a typo?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on November 13, 2016, 11:15:37 AM
The Pinning property reduces the speed by half for normal weapons and by 1/4 for heavy weapons. Usually the heavy weapons have a stronger effect so perhaps you meant it to be reduced by 3/4 or reduced to 1/4 (same thing).
Fixed

For Peace Princess, the ability description for Rags to Royalty V and VI are listed as IV and VV.
Does Peace Princess multiclass with other stuff as a Super Pilot? Same for the Arcane Pilot. (AP multclasses with Super Pilot clearly though to as clearly with other stuff).
Same with the Divine Pilot multiclassing as a Real Pilot would.

A typo: "Divine Pilot levels stack with Real Pilot levels for determining your SuperReal Robot level."
Fixed/cleaned it up.

Also, I notice that PP and the Arcane Pilot mention taking their super robot from the Super Robot List. While there is indeed a "Super Robots List", it isn't really much of a list such as there is for the Real Robots. The Super Robots get a progression and upgrade points based on their super pilot class level so it would probably be clearer and simpler to simply have their levels treated as super pilot levels for the purpose of determining upgrade points and SRobot progression, then applying the weaker modifiers to its stats. It doesn't apply as well as it does for the Divine Pilot, from which this entry was probably copied.
It applies well enough. Super Robot list is in too many places for me to have time to find and apply a customized new text to every each one of them.

The arcane pilot mentions getting half Arsenal space and Hardpoints(rounded up). The super robot doesn't get any hardpoint by default so it is now redundant. Considering they only get 4 arsenal space, the option to swap for full arsenal space is a bit strange.
A multiclass super/real can have a lot of hardpoints.

Quote
...thus having no Arsenal space leftover, and actually have to sacrifice armor, ending up with 3/5 HP, Energy, Nat armor and DR of “regular” versions (minimum -1 at each of those stats)
Is that meant to include the increases from upgrades or only the base stats? Such as hyperdimensional storage granting no arsenal space (but can still add a hardpoint) and and Plating granting 6 hp instead of 10. And less nat armor/DR.
Correct, applies to everything.

Her Mercy ability's second effect upon being reduced to 1 hp doesn't do much against targets that aren't mecha. It can however reduce someone to 5 mu (30-ft). Is there supposed to be a difference between the 2nd and 9th effect?
Overhauled Mercy.

Also, some Peace Princess abilities may need prerequisites. Such as not being able to get higher spell levels before getting the earlier ones, or granting arsenal access of IV before granting the lower ones. The ability to grant so many other mechas access to the higher level arsenal options is probably too strong though. Instead of full access, it should maybe be a specific amount of arsenal option picks, split between any amount of different mecha. The number of picks limited by the number of times the ability is selected, including those for the lower arsenal levels.
Good points about the connections line, applied them. However the spells having no pre-requisites is intended since there is an use in knowing lower level spells, but I also wanted to allow "suddenly big arcane power".

Might also want to clarify what the PP counts as for spirits. Maybe ship captain considering the rest of her kit.
Speaking of which, the ship captain doesn't have any spirit that has a spirit cost that is low enough to be used as a first spirit. They are practically forced to take another class' spirit, which is weird.
Ship Captain, also changed Scan to Ship Captain as well.

Heats: 
Quote
...gains all of the Super Robot upgrades of its members, plus 1 "temporary" Upgrade Point per Team member  that only apply while combined. It counts as having the average Pilot Level of its members for determining what those "temporary" upgrades can be.
Not sure how this is supposed to work. As is it seems to stack all the super upgrades and then add a few extra ones that depends only on who the lead pilot is. But is this combination bypassing the usual maximum of upgrade points per option?
To be sure I got this right, for example; Level 2 SR with plating 2 combining with another Level 2 SR with plating 2 gets Plating 4 with 2 temporary upgrade points that can again be put into plating 2 (with plating 3 for the temporary points being impossible even if there was a third SR in the combination since their average pilot level of 2 has a max of 2)?
Upgrades from the base unit count towards limit of temporary upgrades, clarified.

Responses respectively:
No, it's your material. It's near the bottom of the super robot upgrade list.

That's reasonable.

Thank you.

Not sure which maneuver, but that makes sense.
-Ups, my bad. :blush
-Added Wildbrautier upgrade with complicated name and ART-1

Just because Alt has the most armor/plating/bullets etc... does not mean it should be better at what super robots do than super robots. Don't get me wrong, I love Alt, but it renders the Super Pilot class basically moot at that level, aside from Burning Justice maneuvers.
Well, a Super Pilot at that level would have the advantage of higher energy to use maneuvers plus Soul of the Machine.

Other than that:
Is it intentional that Real Pilots get 7 spirits when everyone else gets 6?
Peace Princess doesn't have Spirited at level 1 on the chart. Is this intentional?
Is it intentional that Einst Queen and Ship Captain do not get any SP from first level?
Also, Peace Princess's "Sweet Princess" option is kinda silly. I see the intent behind it, but it means if you can survive three attacks from an enemy, they're no longer an enemy, with no save allowed, and it's not mind-affecting so it works even on things like oozes (unless I'm missing something)
the Einst Queen's ability "Queen's Will" says it allows any biodrones controlled to use the Einst Queen's BAB "if better", but biodrones don't have a BAB. is this intentional, or a typo?
-Ups, no. Traded the last spirit for another bonus feat.
-Yes.
-Eeerr, Ship Captain/Einst Queen's spirit points are based on their class level, why wouldn't the first level count?
-Clarified that you need four sets of three, not a single set of three. So 12 attacks.
-Any Bab is better than no Bab.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on November 13, 2016, 01:23:34 PM
Just because Alt has the most armor/plating/bullets etc... does not mean it should be better at what super robots do than super robots. Don't get me wrong, I love Alt, but it renders the Super Pilot class basically moot at that level, aside from Burning Justice maneuvers.
Well, a Super Pilot at that level would have the advantage of higher energy to use maneuvers plus Soul of the Machine.

Is it intentional that Einst Queen and Ship Captain do not get any SP from first level?
-Eeerr, Ship Captain/Einst Queen's spirit points are based on their class level, why wouldn't the first level count?
Respectively:
Clearly, I can't get my point across. Sorry for pressing the issue.

Just seemed kinda confusing 'cuz they only get Spirited/Queen's Spirit at level 2, and usually scaling class features scale starting at the level they're gained.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on November 13, 2016, 02:14:27 PM
Thanks for the reply.

Quote
Quote
The arcane pilot mentions getting half Arsenal space and Hardpoints(rounded up). The super robot doesn't get any hardpoint by default so it is now redundant. Considering they only get 4 arsenal space, the option to swap for full arsenal space is a bit strange.
A multiclass super/real can have a lot of hardpoints.
Ah, so a multiclass pilot is supposed to combined the modifier on the final mecha instead of its super component. The entries gave me the impression that a multiclass divine/arcane/peace-p applied their reduction only to the super robot stats, handled separately from the stats added to the mecha from Real Pilot, Ship captain and so on.
(Ship Captain 18/Peace Princess 2 would then have a strong n' tough ship that isn't as strong as a full Ship Captain 20 but would have access to a few weaker PP abilities instead of having the entire 18 level of battleship reduced for them) Same with casting; the penalties and gains being in proportion for each side.
But all right.

Apologies if the question was asked before, but can a casting Pilot/PP channel spells/PP abilities through a full-stats mecha using Amplifier upgrades? Probably one amplifier per spell/ability.
Also, it was probably intended but many PP abilities do not have to be channeled as they either affect her directly or do not have to be used, such as bonuses to saves or getting mooks or a champion. (Nice touch with the champion, by the way. Euphemia+Suzaku was also something I had in mind with the reverse cohort, which puts me mind again of making a knightmare).

Royal champion; The maximum level of the champion per RtR pick seems disproportionate and the level fluctuations in its level advantage feels awkward. Here's a chart of its level advantage assuming it is progressed as soon as possible.
(click to show/hide)
If stabilizes at level 9, for a cost of 3 RtR picks to keep pace at a level advantage for the champion of +2/+2/+1...  but is all over the place before that and the costs to maintain are not balanced (you must spend all your RtR II picks on it but only one RtR III).
It would normally require a maximum champion level of 8 for the second RtR to stabilize the lot to a sequence of +2/+2/+1. For the early levels, to maintain an advancement cost of 3 picks per RtR level, you could limit the number of picks of Royal Champion picks to your maximum PP class level. That would make it +2/+2/+2/+1 for the first four levels, which is all good.
If you'd prefer to stabilize a +2 advantage for as long as possible, you can have each RtR level option grant a +1 advantage, then a +2 advantage with a second pick until X level, at which point it would need the picks of the next RtR level to advance further. It would reduce the advancement costs to 2 picks per RtR level, however, unless the +1 advantage costs 1 pick and +2 advantage costs an extra 2 picks.

I've just read the new Mercy; there is a way for mechas to recover from them but nothing for non-mechas. All movements permanently dropping to 5 feet is pretty nasty, among other things. (though in that case it may be the result of being maimed and would require a regeneration effect to restore the crippled legs)

New connections; to be sure, is it the intent that only picks of High Connections increase the amount of weapon/s.weapon/accessory that can be distributed, and the other connection abilities merely increase the arsenal level accessible, or are they also supposed to increase the amount of picks? As is the higher connection abilities do not affect the amount of arsenal stuff available to be distributed.
Also:
Quote
...delivered and installed on mechas of your choice anywhere, divided as you see fit, including removing previous arsenal to make space.
Is that meant to say that those arsenal options are installed without taking arsenal space/hardpoint? The part about removing previous arsenal to make space could either indicate that they still take space/hardpoint as it could refer to removing a previous use of High Connections to install them again. If they are extras then limiting it to a number per picks of High Connection specifically makes sense, also considering he princess' own reduced arsenal. Seems to be a PP channeled ability because it requires being close to her though not sure if being within the radius is required when it is applied to her own Royal Mecha.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on November 22, 2016, 08:07:48 AM
Thanks for the reply.

Quote
Quote
The arcane pilot mentions getting half Arsenal space and Hardpoints(rounded up). The super robot doesn't get any hardpoint by default so it is now redundant. Considering they only get 4 arsenal space, the option to swap for full arsenal space is a bit strange.
A multiclass super/real can have a lot of hardpoints.
Ah, so a multiclass pilot is supposed to combined the modifier on the final mecha instead of its super component. The entries gave me the impression that a multiclass divine/arcane/peace-p applied their reduction only to the super robot stats, handled separately from the stats added to the mecha from Real Pilot, Ship captain and so on.
(Ship Captain 18/Peace Princess 2 would then have a strong n' tough ship that isn't as strong as a full Ship Captain 20 but would have access to a few weaker PP abilities instead of having the entire 18 level of battleship reduced for them) Same with casting; the penalties and gains being in proportion for each side.
But all right.

Apologies if the question was asked before, but can a casting Pilot/PP channel spells/PP abilities through a full-stats mecha using Amplifier upgrades? Probably one amplifier per spell/ability.
Also, it was probably intended but many PP abilities do not have to be channeled as they either affect her directly or do not have to be used, such as bonuses to saves or getting mooks or a champion.
Channeler won't apply to that kind of stuff, but yes several Peace Princess abilities don't need to actually be channeled so you could have an easier time multiclassing (or you could be an Arcane/Divine Pilot focused on self-buffs).

(Nice touch with the champion, by the way. Euphemia+Suzaku was also something I had in mind with the reverse cohort, which puts me mind again of making a knightmare).

Royal champion; The maximum level of the champion per RtR pick seems disproportionate and the level fluctuations in its level advantage feels awkward. Here's a chart of its level advantage assuming it is progressed as soon as possible.
(click to show/hide)
If stabilizes at level 9, for a cost of 3 RtR picks to keep pace at a level advantage for the champion of +2/+2/+1...  but is all over the place before that and the costs to maintain are not balanced (you must spend all your RtR II picks on it but only one RtR III).
It would normally require a maximum champion level of 8 for the second RtR to stabilize the lot to a sequence of +2/+2/+1. For the early levels, to maintain an advancement cost of 3 picks per RtR level, you could limit the number of picks of Royal Champion picks to your maximum PP class level. That would make it +2/+2/+2/+1 for the first four levels, which is all good.
If you'd prefer to stabilize a +2 advantage for as long as possible, you can have each RtR level option grant a +1 advantage, then a +2 advantage with a second pick until X level, at which point it would need the picks of the next RtR level to advance further. It would reduce the advancement costs to 2 picks per RtR level, however, unless the +1 advantage costs 1 pick and +2 advantage costs an extra 2 picks.
Actually I messed up the caps.

Also every level now grants Rags to Royalty, spread up the spirits and bonus feats.

Now I just need to add more abilities to pick.

I've just read the new Mercy; there is a way for mechas to recover from them but nothing for non-mechas. All movements permanently dropping to 5 feet is pretty nasty, among other things. (though in that case it may be the result of being maimed and would require a regeneration effect to restore the crippled legs)
Added auto-heal to non-mechas. Not that mercyful to leave them crippled until expensive treatment is applied.

New connections; to be sure, is it the intent that only picks of High Connections increase the amount of weapon/s.weapon/accessory that can be distributed, and the other connection abilities merely increase the arsenal level accessible, or are they also supposed to increase the amount of picks? As is the higher connection abilities do not affect the amount of arsenal stuff available to be distributed.
Higher connections only allow you to requisition fancier stuff.

Also:
Quote
...delivered and installed on mechas of your choice anywhere, divided as you see fit, including removing previous arsenal to make space.
Is that meant to say that those arsenal options are installed without taking arsenal space/hardpoint? The part about removing previous arsenal to make space could either indicate that they still take space/hardpoint as it could refer to removing a previous use of High Connections to install them again. If they are extras then limiting it to a number per picks of High Connection specifically makes sense, also considering he princess' own reduced arsenal. Seems to be a PP channeled ability because it requires being close to her though not sure if being within the radius is required when it is applied to her own Royal Mecha.
No, you can't go over limits, just that you can unequip peasant arsenal stuff to make space for the new royal arsenal. Can't fill a cup with expensive wine if it's already filled with cheap beer.

Self arsenal still demands a non-null radius value.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on November 23, 2016, 01:06:22 AM
Quote
Added auto-heal to non-mechas. Not that mercyful to leave them crippled until expensive treatment is applied.
Sounds good. Are those meant to be a status effect that can simply be removed by any of the numerous options that cancel a negative effect? Considering the amount of options to clear ill effects away and that mercy's negative effects do not stack until the target heals, limiting it to 1 effect per round maximum.
Not sure if the same applies to the Saint's version of Mercy since many of those ill-effect cancelers can be used even if you cannot take any action.

Quote
No, you can't go over limits, just that you can unequip peasant arsenal stuff to make space for the new royal arsenal. Can't fill a cup with expensive wine if it's already filled with cheap beer.
Self arsenal still demands a non-null radius value.
Might want to clarify that the ability only adds the arsenal level options to the arsenal available for that mecha's selections since as is it simply adds to them by having them installed. As I said, the part about replacing arsenal in the process could seem to refer to the previous use of the same ability.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on November 30, 2016, 11:10:14 PM
Mercy's effects have limite duration so yes you can patch them up. However ejecting/mecha destroyed would render it a moot point.

Clarified connections.

Also Added Peace princess's capstone and added/changed some of the abilities.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on December 01, 2016, 04:27:37 AM
All right.
I wanted to note that right now it has become even easier to get support from mecha passengers.
You could get plenty of level 1 minions as passengers that grant extreme benefits to the pilot/mecha.
For example, there are now arsenal options that recover stuff for other mechas; a level 1 android with the arsenal accessory feat could have one equipped and use it from within a mecha to restore it.

A level 1 support staff minion or two could similarly spam recovery options such as Recharge to keep a mecha at max energy forever.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on December 01, 2016, 04:38:50 AM
Well, you would need a renewable source of androids since technically they can only change the feat arsenal at level up, so limited number of cartridge/repair kit uses. But pretty abuseable yes.

Limited the Android racial feat to non-consumables and also clarified that the Support Staff can only use their specialization abilities while piloting their Mobile Worker, thanks.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on December 01, 2016, 11:10:01 AM
Hi5!
That reminds me now that, while I do not know all the things you've crossed the SRW setting homebrews with, there's the Animated Object that gets a similar arsenal access. Maybe not up date with the Energy Arsenal stuff though.
There's also the moon vanguard minions that can pull the arsenal support trick since they can use it with their nanoarmor within the mecha. If they do not work while within a mecha, you can destroy their nanoarmor since they still keep their arsenal stuff.

An arsenal option I'm considering: Arsenal weapons of an arsenal level lower than your maximum can be taken and made twin-linked. But if that weapon has the defensive special weapon quality, such as the G-Revolver (II), is it intended to do the twin attacks as an immediate action or is it only doing one? Because as per the description of Twin-Linked, the twin attack applies in specific cases (attack with a standard action or attacks with a fullattack) and a Defensive attack isn't one of them.

Oh, would the Tactical feat of the Martial Machine be essentially the same as the one for Gun Maniac?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on December 13, 2016, 02:45:18 PM
Oslecamo, the thread says you've updated battleships today, but I can't see what's changed. Would it be too much trouble to ask for a patch log whenever you change things? That'd be awesome if you'd be willing to do it!
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on December 13, 2016, 09:19:08 PM
Hi5!
That reminds me now that, while I do not know all the things you've crossed the SRW setting homebrews with, there's the Animated Object that gets a similar arsenal access. Maybe not up date with the Energy Arsenal stuff though.
There's also the moon vanguard minions that can pull the arsenal support trick since they can use it with their nanoarmor within the mecha. If they do not work while within a mecha, you can destroy their nanoarmor since they still keep their arsenal stuff.
Added rule for that in Arsenal, such options can not be used in a mecha you're inside of.

An arsenal option I'm considering: Arsenal weapons of an arsenal level lower than your maximum can be taken and made twin-linked. But if that weapon has the defensive special weapon quality, such as the G-Revolver (II), is it intended to do the twin attacks as an immediate action or is it only doing one? Because as per the description of Twin-Linked, the twin attack applies in specific cases (attack with a standard action or attacks with a fullattack) and a Defensive attack isn't one of them.
Added clause for that as well.

Oh, would the Tactical feat of the Martial Machine be essentially the same as the one for Gun Maniac?
Well, it would have the usual "pick from 3/4 feats, plus "something synergy with 3 weapon tags", but still thinking about others. Something able to twin-link a pair of melee weapons while on foot plus make a weapon count as Heavy for boosted damage and make your unarmed strikes count as mecha-scale.

But first I want to flesh out more the Support Staff. Also need more Arsenal Missiles. Been toying with an idea for a whole school on that actually, "Macross Missile Massacre".

Oslecamo, the thread says you've updated battleships today, but I can't see what's changed. Would it be too much trouble to ask for a patch log whenever you change things? That'd be awesome if you'd be willing to do it!
Hmmm, I guess I can give a changelog a try around here. Although the ship change was just some typo correction. :P
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on December 31, 2016, 02:59:50 PM
The Born to Fight feat has the passive effect of allowing a pilot to affect mechas with nondamage effects (both ill or benefical) even if you're on foot and smaller than them.
Would it not make sense for non-pilots to have access to a feat that grants that ability as well? Settings introducing new elements often also give options to fight those new elements without being a part of it. So a warrior could be an expert at taking down those metal colossi without being a pilot, even if they technically count as having a CR of +2 against him.

Otherwise, maybe a feat could allow non-pilots to qualify has having a pilot class for the purpose of qualifying for feats that do not require a mecha.
Such as the Cyber Newtype/Innovade/Coordinator feats, maybe, since they do not require being a pilot, and could then get Born to Fight if only for that passive effect.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on December 31, 2016, 08:33:30 PM
Hmmm, I guess I can give a changelog a try around here. Although the ship change was just some typo correction. :P
A change log would be nice, but cross-indexing or completing information would be better.

Like you can put the actual weapon properties in the Arsenal Thread instead of burying in one spoiler of several in another thread. You could actually put text into Arcane/Divine Pilot saying they gain Arsenal like a Super Pilot as you've had to answer in here, and then using parenthesis provide a short note of access at level 4 and upgrades once per three levels after that. One sentence can prevent a tab full of explosions and digging into this thread (and phantasy star's) for answers.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on December 31, 2016, 09:00:34 PM
I think it could have been better phrased but yeah: the cross-referencing is overkill here. Super robots and real robots are now in the same thread as their parent class but common terms and features are regularly in threads without other indications (you have a 50/50 chance of working out where weapon properties are for one)
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on January 02, 2017, 10:51:57 AM
The Born to Fight feat has the passive effect of allowing a pilot to affect mechas with nondamage effects (both ill or benefical) even if you're on foot and smaller than them.
Would it not make sense for non-pilots to have access to a feat that grants that ability as well? Settings introducing new elements often also give options to fight those new elements without being a part of it.
 So a warrior could be an expert at taking down those metal colossi without being a pilot, even if they technically count as having a CR of +2 against him.
Clearly I missed the anti-psionic feat on the psionics splatbooks and the anti-maneuver feat in Tome of Battle. I think Libris Mortis did have anti-undead feats you could take as a warm meatbag, but they kinda sucked and you were much better off becoming an undead yourself.

Otherwise, maybe a feat could allow non-pilots to qualify has having a pilot class for the purpose of qualifying for feats that do not require a mecha.
Such as the Cyber Newtype/Innovade/Coordinator feats, maybe, since they do not require being a pilot, and could then get Born to Fight if only for that passive effect.

One of the main points of this project is a setting where everybody is a pilot of some sort and you defeat mechas by having your own mechas, and fighting on foot is a last ditch effort or risky gambit, not your standard strategy. Even if a group wanted to take an already party of non-pilots and drop them on this setting, my recommendation would be for the party to run into some empty mechas they could commandeer.



Hmmm, I guess I can give a changelog a try around here. Although the ship change was just some typo correction. :P
A change log would be nice, but cross-indexing or completing information would be better.

Like you can put the actual weapon properties in the Arsenal Thread instead of burying in one spoiler of several in another thread. You could actually put text into Arcane/Divine Pilot saying they gain Arsenal like a Super Pilot as you've had to answer in here, and then using parenthesis provide a short note of access at level 4 and upgrades once per three levels after that. One sentence can prevent a tab full of explosions and digging into this thread (and phantasy star's) for answers.

Clarified the Arcane and Divine pilot's arsenal access, copied keywords to Arsenal, now I'll have to update it twice whenever I want to change something, yay!

Well anyway with the new year more positive energy and let's see if I can work on my backlog. With Soro having PMd me his promised fluff I've got to do my side as well and finally compile my stuff as well.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on January 03, 2017, 10:03:34 PM
Well anyway with the new year more positive energy and let's see if I can work on my backlog. With Soro having PMd me his promised fluff I've got to do my side as well and finally compile my stuff as well.
To be fair it took me three months giving you plenty of time to catch up :p

I also have spare notes floating around to partially extend on the rest of the family that could be compiled if you'll really use the stuff. I crank out flavor as a form of procrastination. Plus I was so up for adding the 5th dimension into things be generally you have to sit around explaining what the first four are in D&D thanks to everything thinking time travel and misunderstood tesseracts.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on January 14, 2017, 05:11:27 AM
For Super Robots that don't have Hardpoints, can anything actually be put into their default Arsenal space of 4? Or are Hardpoints exclusively for Accessories and general Arsenal space can be filled with combat weapons and such without spending Hardpoints?

Are you not allowed to have multiple Great One upgrades on a Super Robot?

I know we talked about it in the PS game but the Fighter transformation affects fly speed how? Am I increasing my base by 150% it's normal value or is my base becoming 150% of itself? I'm still lost here.

100 mu fly becomes 250 mu?
or
100 mu fly becomes 150 mu?

If you have multiple built-in weapons can you attack with all of them in the same round?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on January 14, 2017, 05:35:03 AM
Yes, general Arsenal space can be filled with (and only with) combat and special weapons.

No, only one Great One upgrade per super robot.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on January 14, 2017, 07:32:06 AM
Okay, thank you.

I kept editing in stuff to my last post without noticing you'd responded yet so

Quote
I know we talked about it in the PS game but the Fighter transformation affects fly speed how? Am I increasing my base by 150% it's normal value or is my base becoming 150% of itself? I'm still lost here.

100 mu fly becomes 250 mu?
or
100 mu fly becomes 150 mu?

If you have multiple built-in weapons can you attack with all of them in the same round?

Edit: If you have Twin-linked weapons with the Volatile property on both, do they both explode or would just one of the two linked weapons explode upon taking damage/nat 20ing?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on January 14, 2017, 09:47:39 AM
100 mu fly would become 150 mu.

Yes, you can attack with all in-built and arsenal weapons in a full attack. Could've sworn I had added a clause for that in the intro but found nothing so added now.

Twin-linked volatile weapons would explode one at a time.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on January 14, 2017, 05:38:37 PM
K, my turn to be confused. When you say "all" do you mean abusively all or you can split up your attacks between any of the weapons however you like?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on January 14, 2017, 08:01:32 PM
Relevant text:

Quote
When full attacking, a mecha may choose to either perform iteratives with a single weapon or attack once with any or all of its in-built and arsenal weapons. In the latter case, all weapons after the first take a -5 penalty on the attack roll and only add half the relevant stat to damage.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on January 14, 2017, 08:23:38 PM
So at level one a Super Pilot can select Extra and attack three times per round.
By level four it can attack six times per round (2 built in, 2 extra, 2 arsenal).
By level eight it can attack nineteen times (2 built in, 3 extra, 4 linked arsenal, 10 grenades).
Man all it needs is some Rending, or Sneak Attack w/e.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on January 14, 2017, 08:51:07 PM
Is Spirit Regen not obtainable multiple times for stacking effect? I apparently was doing just that and I could have sworn it either use to do so before or I asked and got an okay but I can't remember for sure....

Could it be a stacking feat? -_-'
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on January 15, 2017, 12:30:43 AM
Quote
By level eight it can attack nineteen times (2 built in, 3 extra, 4 linked arsenal, 10 grenades).
I'm pretty sure arsenal weapons are not built-in weapons, though. Otherwise it opens the door to a lot of new tricks.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on January 15, 2017, 02:06:31 AM
Is Spirit Regen not obtainable multiple times for stacking effect? I apparently was doing just that and I could have sworn it either use to do so before or I asked and got an okay but I can't remember for sure....

Could it be a stacking feat? -_-'

First version of Spirit Regen was stackable indeed but I changed that a bunch of updates ago.

So at level one a Super Pilot can select Extra and attack three times per round.
By level four it can attack six times per round (2 built in, 2 extra, 2 arsenal).
By level eight it can attack nineteen times (2 built in, 3 extra, 4 linked arsenal, 10 grenades).
Man all it needs is some Rending, or Sneak Attack w/e.

Also, you know, being able to make more than two full attacks before running out of ammo for over half your weapons.  Very Gundam Heavyarms. :P

Also the extra weapons are melee by default unless you use tank transformation, and tank disables your arsenal weapons so that's a no go. The only way you can pull the last bit is being close and personal provoking 10+ Aoos from the ranged grenade attacks.

Quote
By level eight it can attack nineteen times (2 built in, 3 extra, 4 linked arsenal, 10 grenades).
I'm pretty sure arsenal weapons are not built-in weapons, though. Otherwise it opens the door to a lot of new tricks.

Eeerrr, the text I posted above explicitly states that arsenal weapons can be used along in-built weapons for the full attack.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on January 15, 2017, 03:19:57 AM
Also, you know, being able to make more than two full attacks before running out of ammo for over half your weapons.  Very Gundam Heavyarms. :P
Yeah but once I killed the mechs next to me I don't really suffer for those AoOs and once I kill all the mechs I don't suffer from running out of ammunition either.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on January 15, 2017, 09:44:58 AM
Also, you know, being able to make more than two full attacks before running out of ammo for over half your weapons.  Very Gundam Heavyarms. :P
Yeah but once I killed the mechs next to me I don't really suffer for those AoOs and once I kill all the mechs I don't suffer from running out of ammunition either.
Very much this!
A real pilot on most robots could equip 25 twin-linked steel knives, for example. The penalty to attacks get too high before long but the potential may play out with the right abilities. The first 10 could come into play and the rest would hope for a natural 20.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on January 15, 2017, 06:28:07 PM
Added hard cap of 1 weapon per pilot level.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on January 15, 2017, 08:42:57 PM
So we're capped at fourteen attacks in PH, let's see...

* lv14 Super Robot maximum upgrade defense is Growthx3, Great Plating, & Plating x8. That's 285 hp & 33 DR.
* You can also have 79 Arsenal points with lv4 gear but are capped at 14 attacks (apparently).
* So let's do 30 for the Ability Score (several have more in PH), Mightyx8, and the -50% bonus penalty is ignored by the +50% bonus for using one weapon type.
* We will use the Incision Knife (42pts spent) since it has Rending, it deals 2d8+31 against DR 16/- or 24 per hit.
*drum roll*
That's 336 damage per round, you can actually miss twice and still kill your opponent. Without using ammo!

And I have no idea how this is supposed to work with [Heavy] Weapons otherwise we could have used the FXA-03M2 which deals a rending 10d12+46*7 or up to 1,050 damage even with the DR from the super-defense-bot factored in. But that one is limited cus you can only use it four times per Encounter which just isn't enough to kill that fifteenth elite guard.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on January 15, 2017, 09:28:24 PM
The +50% damage is not for using one weapon type only, is for using one weapon only, point.

Also a super with those upgrades would be 4 DR(base)+14 (level)+8(plating)+(9 gargantuan Great One)=35 DR.

Mighty is 8x2=+16, 30 ability score gives a bonus of +10 that's halved for +5, each Incision Knive deals 2d8+21, not very sure where you got the previous value from.

Average damage is 30 against valid DR 17, so 13 hit per damage, for an actual total of 182 damage. Assuming you hit everything.

Heavy weapons still limited by the needing a fullround action to use.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on January 15, 2017, 10:21:20 PM
Quote
Average damage is 30 against valid DR 17, so 13 hit per damage, for an actual total of 182 damage. Assuming you hit everything.
And 40 energy for the use of Mighty. Mighty itself it doesn't accomplish much but there are so many other modifiers to damage that very high damage can indeed be reached rather easily... if everything hits. Still very strong. It is like a monster using natural weapons to fight except that natural weapons cannot be part of the combo. Not sure if that affects the use of that option for the Einst with their bioweapons/natural weapons.

Here's a group of questions:

Quote
Added hard cap of 1 weapon per pilot level.
Twin-linked weapons still count as 2 separate weapons for that purpose one a single one? 1 per pilot level is pretty amazing.

If a support staff chooses a real robot base, say, the Astelion (3 built-in weapons). He has to get rid of half its built-in weapons; is the removal rounded down or rounded up?

Are the perceptions that aren't already specifying that they depend on line of effect (such as blindsense and darkvision) bypassing line of effect? Or perhaps they work as emanation auras, going around obstacles? It is an important detail since otherwise some of them, like sensing things that aren't touching the ground then essentially just become a limited blindsense that isn't called blindsense.

Say you use a single weapon during your turn and thus get effective 2-handed damage. And then during the enemy turn you use an AoO with a different weapon while the current round still isn't over ; does it retroactively change the damage inflicted during your own turn since it no longer is the only weapon used that round? As that is how it seems to work. Unless instead of using only a single weapon per round is meant to be a single weapon per turn.

Some pilot feat abilities vs LoE: The Innovade's machine controlling aura, the Cyber Newtype's telepathy aura, both and the Coordinator's ability to detect within their aura's range and the Leader feat's aura; do they ignore line of effect or are perhaps spread/continuous burst effects? As all they require is for the potential targets to be with in their aura's range.

It may be obvious that Counter is a very powerful feat. Should there be a limit to the number of times it can be picked? Whether X per Y HD or by applying a limit in its usage, such as not being possible to use it more than once for the same thing (which promotes having more feats Counter can be used with, which also decreases the number of feats that can be dumped into Counter). So it could counter only once for Defend, once on Offensive Support and once on a defensive weapon.

Maybe a limit to the amount of Leader feat picks as well. A regular cohort or a second officer cohort could have nothing else to do than get pumped with Leader feats. The second officer may be prevented from having allies within the ship benefit from it because of that clause about him not being able to contribute to the fight except through spirit usage (unless the he gets command while a multiclass captain leaving on his real robot) but regular cohorts do not have that restriction.

Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on January 15, 2017, 10:24:31 PM
So in my discussions with Anomander I have found that Moon Vanguard very much would benefit from a section in the Mecha Basics thread defining how it and it's Nanoarmor can and cannot interact with a multiclassing/gestalt Super Pilot, Real Pilot, and Ship Captain's mechas/ships.

I've never thought about it before, but Super Nanoarmors that take advantage of the Growth upgrade would be tricky to wear whilst inside most Real Robots. For example, Katherine's Nanoarmor is Gargantuan. On Mecha scale she is a Small sized Mecha. Her Real Robot is Medium sized on Mecha scale. The mental picture here is an unmodified Real Robot having a cockpit big enough to accommodate a Mecha only 1 size smaller than the Real Robot.

Visually, I can't see this working despite this being exactly what I based my entire character around at the beginning  :lmao

Realistically, A Moon Vanguard/Real Pilot would have to have a very customized Real Robot to accommodate being piloted with an equipped Nanoarmor. Hell, at 16th level that Nanoarmor could be the same size as the Real Robot you're trying to pilot. What is the Real Robot now if we continue to try to make this work? An exoskeleton for the Nanoarmor with the Nanoarmor itself realigning and installing itself to become all of the functioning systems that make a Mecha work? So now in this hypothetical, A Moon Vanguard/Real Pilot's Real Robot has become a suit of armor for you suit of armor.

On the other hand, all of this weirdness is entirely avoidable if the Moon Vanguard gestalts/multis into Super Pilot and just has a Super Robot with Growth upgrades itself. But now we're all redundant with a Super Nanoarmor and a Super Robot.


On to more specific things related to my character though. Anomander had this quote from you in response to one of his questions long ago.
Quote
nanoarmor is a very small mecha, a piece of gear with its own stats that borrows abilities from you, not a self-buff. Otherwise this will end with you trying to cram mechas of diferent sizes inside each other to try to stack all their abilities.
I'll let overdrive work with the "bigger" mecha. But you still can't use the nanoarmor's HP/DR/saves/AC/weapons/arsenal.
I'll make a special exception for the bigger mecha geting the youkai-forged blades from your nanoarmor however.

So Overdrive can affect the Mecha you're piloting with a Nanoarmor, but no using the Nano's HP/DR/Saves/AC/Weapons/Arsenal. Cool cool. What about when the "bigger" mecha gets critted with you inside, inside your Nanoarmor?

Can you use your Nano's energy to fuel the "bigger" mecha?

You allowed Youkai-Forged Blades from the Nanoarmor to be able to be used through to the "bigger" mecha, but what about any Super Nano upgrades that are being applied specifically to the YFBs? Main Weapon, for example.

In regards to Katherine; being a Real Pilot and a Moon Vanguard (of which both classes are Pilot classes), how does Born to Fight interact with the Moon Vanguard's Maneuver system compared to how it works with a Real/Super/Ship Pilot class' maneuver system? Born to Fight calls out being able to use "Pilot Maneuvers" while outside of your mecha, not caring whether they are readied or not readied maneuvers because most Pilot classes to not have Readied/Unreadied maneuvers. Can Born to Fight be used to access any Pilot Maneuver from your Moon Vanguard's known list regardless of it being readied or not?
I gotta admit, I may have been already using it like that on a couple occasions >.> At least for me, it hasn't seemed overpowered yet, especially with the 5min cooldown attached to each maneuver used as such. Admittedly I saw it as a more versatile version of Tome of Battle's Adaptive style.

I'm not sure I got everything as I've had a lot of questions come and go over the last 2-3 days...maybe Anomander will come by and fill in some of my gaps.....

Oh, this last one's entirely offtopic from my above stuff but any plans on a tactical Pilot Feat for Martial Machine like you've got for all the other Pilot Schools so far?

EDIT: Considering my Yokai-Forged Blades are a built-in weapon of my Nanoarmor, does that mean my hands are technically free/empty to hold things?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on January 16, 2017, 12:02:14 AM
Quote
Average damage is 30 against valid DR 17, so 13 hit per damage, for an actual total of 182 damage. Assuming you hit everything.
And 40 energy for the use of Mighty. Mighty itself it doesn't accomplish much but there are so many other modifiers to damage that very high damage can indeed be reached rather easily... if everything hits. Still very strong.
Well it's one of the reasons I made the Prevail feat. Trying to wear down your opponent by a big amount of small attacks isn't so hot if they get tougher as their HP drops.

It is like a monster using natural weapons to fight except that natural weapons cannot be part of the combo. Not sure if that affects the use of that option for the Einst with their bioweapons/natural weapons.
Good point, added a clause for that in the Einst Queen bioweapons section.

Here's a group of questions:

Quote
Added hard cap of 1 weapon per pilot level.
Twin-linked weapons still count as 2 separate weapons for that purpose one a single one? 1 per pilot level is pretty amazing.
No, the benefits for Twin-Linked weapons are explicitly stated on the ability itself (fire both as standard or full attack iteratives with both replacing everything else).

If a support staff chooses a real robot base, say, the Astelion (3 built-in weapons). He has to get rid of half its built-in weapons; is the removal rounded down or rounded up?
Another good point, clarified it's rounded up.

Are the perceptions that aren't already specifying that they depend on line of effect (such as blindsense and darkvision) bypassing line of effect? Or perhaps they work as emanation auras, going around obstacles? It is an important detail since otherwise some of them, like sensing things that aren't touching the ground then essentially just become a limited blindsense that isn't called blindsense.
Clarified that spacesense and the metal detection don't demand line of sight. The "see through certain things" is already pretty explicit I believe.


Say you use a single weapon during your turn and thus get effective 2-handed damage. And then during the enemy turn you use an AoO with a different weapon while the current round still isn't over ; does it retroactively change the damage inflicted during your own turn since it no longer is the only weapon used that round? As that is how it seems to work. Unless instead of using only a single weapon per round is meant to be a single weapon per turn.
You can't make the AoO with a different weapon at all. You already chosed to only use one weapon in that round.


Some pilot feat abilities vs LoE: The Innovade's machine controlling aura, the Cyber Newtype's telepathy aura, both and the Coordinator's ability to detect within their aura's range and the Leader feat's aura; do they ignore line of effect or are perhaps spread/continuous burst effects? As all they require is for the potential targets to be with in their aura's range.
Telepathy still works as telepathy, blindsight still works as blindsight.

Clarified for the Innovade's custom aura.

It may be obvious that Counter is a very powerful feat. Should there be a limit to the number of times it can be picked? Whether X per Y HD or by applying a limit in its usage, such as not being possible to use it more than once for the same thing (which promotes having more feats Counter can be used with, which also decreases the number of feats that can be dumped into Counter). So it could counter only once for Defend, once on Offensive Support and once on a defensive weapon.

Maybe a limit to the amount of Leader feat picks as well. A regular cohort or a second officer cohort could have nothing else to do than get pumped with Leader feats. The second officer may be prevented from having allies within the ship benefit from it because of that clause about him not being able to contribute to the fight except through spirit usage (unless the he gets command while a multiclass captain leaving on his real robot) but regular cohorts do not have that restriction.
Limited both to 1+1/4 HD.

So in my discussions with Anomander I have found that Moon Vanguard very much would benefit from a section in the Mecha Basics thread defining how it and it's Nanoarmor can and cannot interact with a multiclassing/gestalt Super Pilot, Real Pilot, and Ship Captain's mechas/ships.
Yeah, no, it's in another subforum altogether.

I've never thought about it before, but Super Nanoarmors that take advantage of the Growth upgrade would be tricky to wear whilst inside most Real Robots. For example, Katherine's Nanoarmor is Gargantuan. On Mecha scale she is a Small sized Mecha. Her Real Robot is Medium sized on Mecha scale. The mental picture here is an unmodified Real Robot having a cockpit big enough to accommodate a Mecha only 1 size smaller than the Real Robot.
Well that's more of power armor for your power armor, which isn't that rare. There's quite a lot of Gundams where the mecha ends up piloting a bigger module.  The Huckebein MK III Boxer also is this, although doesn't get any special rules since it was one of the first ones and I was/am too lazy to add any special rules to represent that in particular when the original game also didn't care much besides "now counts as a bigger/stronger Huckebein, enjoy".

Visually, I can't see this working despite this being exactly what I based my entire character around at the beginning  :lmao

Realistically, A Moon Vanguard/Real Pilot would have to have a very customized Real Robot to accommodate being piloted with an equipped Nanoarmor. Hell, at 16th level that Nanoarmor could be the same size as the Real Robot you're trying to pilot. What is the Real Robot now if we continue to try to make this work? An exoskeleton for the Nanoarmor with the Nanoarmor itself realigning and installing itself to become all of the functioning systems that make a Mecha work? So now in this hypothetical, A Moon Vanguard/Real Pilot's Real Robot has become a suit of armor for you suit of armor.
Gundam Seed.jpg

On the other hand, all of this weirdness is entirely avoidable if the Moon Vanguard gestalts/multis into Super Pilot and just has a Super Robot with Growth upgrades itself. But now we're all redundant with a Super Nanoarmor and a Super Robot.

On to more specific things related to my character though. Anomander had this quote from you in response to one of his questions long ago.
Quote
nanoarmor is a very small mecha, a piece of gear with its own stats that borrows abilities from you, not a self-buff. Otherwise this will end with you trying to cram mechas of diferent sizes inside each other to try to stack all their abilities.
I'll let overdrive work with the "bigger" mecha. But you still can't use the nanoarmor's HP/DR/saves/AC/weapons/arsenal.
I'll make a special exception for the bigger mecha geting the youkai-forged blades from your nanoarmor however.

So Overdrive can affect the Mecha you're piloting with a Nanoarmor, but no using the Nano's HP/DR/Saves/AC/Weapons/Arsenal. Cool cool. What about when the "bigger" mecha gets critted with you inside, inside your Nanoarmor?
Nanoarmor eats it along the mecha, fleshy bits at the core are safe for now.

Can you use your Nano's energy to fuel the "bigger" mecha?
No.

You allowed Youkai-Forged Blades from the Nanoarmor to be able to be used through to the "bigger" mecha, but what about any Super Nano upgrades that are being applied specifically to the YFBs? Main Weapon, for example.
No. The YFB will count as another in-built weapon of the bigger mecha using base stats only.

In regards to Katherine; being a Real Pilot and a Moon Vanguard (of which both classes are Pilot classes), how does Born to Fight interact with the Moon Vanguard's Maneuver system compared to how it works with a Real/Super/Ship Pilot class' maneuver system? Born to Fight calls out being able to use "Pilot Maneuvers" while outside of your mecha, not caring whether they are readied or not readied maneuvers because most Pilot classes to not have Readied/Unreadied maneuvers. Can Born to Fight be used to access any Pilot Maneuver from your Moon Vanguard's known list regardless of it being readied or not?
I gotta admit, I may have been already using it like that on a couple occasions >.> At least for me, it hasn't seemed overpowered yet, especially with the 5min cooldown attached to each maneuver used as such. Admittedly I saw it as a more versatile version of Tome of Battle's Adaptive style.
Correct, the cooldown is a key penalty.

I'm not sure I got everything as I've had a lot of questions come and go over the last 2-3 days...maybe Anomander will come by and fill in some of my gaps.....

Oh, this last one's entirely offtopic from my above stuff but any plans on a tactical Pilot Feat for Martial Machine like you've got for all the other Pilot Schools so far?
Yes once I get some important work finished in RL and actually get time to write new homebrew.

EDIT: Considering my Yokai-Forged Blades are a built-in weapon of my Nanoarmor, does that mean my hands are technically free/empty to hold things?

Yes.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on January 16, 2017, 12:26:44 AM
Thanks for the swift answers! I appreciate.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on January 16, 2017, 04:52:24 AM
Quote
Yeah, no, it's in another subforum altogether.

Well then how about putting it in the Moon Vanguard's thread? It's a Pilot class that pulls almost all of it's abilities from the SRW Pilot stuff and all  :huh

Edit: And yes, thank you! That clears up some things I may or may not have been doing wrong -_-'

Quote
Well that's more of power armor for your power armor, which isn't that rare. There's quite a lot of Gundams where the mecha ends up piloting a bigger module.  The Huckebein MK III Boxer also is this, although doesn't get any special rules since it was one of the first ones and I was/am too lazy to add any special rules to represent that in particular when the original game also didn't care much besides "now counts as a bigger/stronger Huckebein, enjoy".

Gundam Seed.jpg

The only show I can recall ever seeing bigass mechas piloting biggerass mechas was Gurren Lagann  :p
But those are all Supers and Supers inside Supers makes sense to me.
It's the Reals that get weird  :lmao
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on January 17, 2017, 03:07:29 PM
Maybe a limit to the amount of Leader feat picks as well. A regular cohort or a second officer cohort could have nothing else to do than get pumped with Leader feats. The second officer may be prevented from having allies within the ship benefit from it because of that clause about him not being able to contribute to the fight except through spirit usage (unless the he gets command while a multiclass captain leaving on his real robot) but regular cohorts do not have that restriction.
Limited both to 1+1/4 HD.

With this change to Leader, it seems to me (based on observations of the Ship Captain in my campaign) that Ships Full of Hope needs to have its range decoupled from the number of times you have the Leader feat, because as it stands, a ship captain's range with buffs will now be only 1+1/4th HD. If you want to keep the number of Leader feats relevant, make the range on Ships Full of Hope maneuvers be leadership range + ship captain level. Basically, my game's Ship Captain has been taking almost nothing but Leader just because he can't use any of his maneuvers on the rest of the party if he doesn't. I don't know if that's intended, but it feels very harsh.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on January 17, 2017, 04:58:13 PM
Extended Ships Full of Hope range based on ship captain level.



Quote
Yeah, no, it's in another subforum altogether.

Well then how about putting it in the Moon Vanguard's thread? It's a Pilot class that pulls almost all of it's abilities from the SRW Pilot stuff and all  :huh
I'll consider it.

Quote
Well that's more of power armor for your power armor, which isn't that rare. There's quite a lot of Gundams where the mecha ends up piloting a bigger module.  The Huckebein MK III Boxer also is this, although doesn't get any special rules since it was one of the first ones and I was/am too lazy to add any special rules to represent that in particular when the original game also didn't care much besides "now counts as a bigger/stronger Huckebein, enjoy".

Gundam Seed.jpg

The only show I can recall ever seeing bigass mechas piloting biggerass mechas was Gurren Lagann  :p
But those are all Supers and Supers inside Supers makes sense to me.
It's the Reals that get weird  :lmao

(http://imgur.com/Db8Lrgn.jpg)

Here's your real robot inside another real robot.

And that one in particular fought a bigger real robot (http://gundam.wikia.com/wiki/GNMA-XCVII_Alvatore) that had another smaller real robot (http://gundam.wikia.com/wiki/GNMS-XCVII_Alvaaron) inside.

Gundam was the one doing the whole robot piloting from inside another robot cool in the first place. Probaly because the series has always been partially a comercial for toy robots, and that's the perfect excuse to adding new models that combine directly over your previous models. :P
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on January 17, 2017, 08:18:30 PM
Weird, I don't remember the Alvatore at all...00 was one of my favorites too. Huh.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on January 17, 2017, 08:41:29 PM
(http://news.entertainmentearth.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/BA97400-370x600.jpg)
Technically speaking the Red Dragon Thunderzord is wearing the other Zords (link (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71Hr3AzLhGM#t=0m46s))
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on January 17, 2017, 08:52:41 PM
Weird, I don't remember the Alvatore at all...00 was one of my favorites too. Huh.

Just the first season's final boss. :p

Much earlier there's the Gundam Dendrobium (http://gundam.wikia.com/wiki/RX-78GP03_Gundam_%22Dendrobium%22) although he only appeared on the Stardust memory OVA from 1991.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on January 18, 2017, 03:19:08 AM
Mmh. Maybe the Spirit Up feat should also have a similar scaling maximum number of picks.

Am I correct in assuming that when the arsenal options state that they increase the spirit points of the pilot the extra spirit points apply only while the pilot is controlling the mecha? Those from the Arsenal accessories affect any pilot so it seems they are gone when the pilot is on foot and must be recovered once the pilot controls the mecha again. The Soul of the Machine upgrade however refers to the main pilot, so the effect follows that one pilot no matter who is currently piloting the mecha although it may still require for the main pilot to be controlling he mecha for him to gain the benefits. It is unclear.

Is the Moon Vanguard meant to have access to the new pilot martial disciplines as well?

Also, almost every class restricts the use of a spirit to once per turn per spirit. That limit should probably be generalized by adding it in the spirit's thread.
Something else... I noticed that since there is no range to spirits and since you encourage the idea of having supporters on the sides that assist with spirit usage, there should probably also be a limit on the application of a spirit as well for the receiver, such as each spirit cannot be applied to the same target more than once unless it specifically has a clause on the matter (such as Provoke).

It is otherwise possible to have level 1 minions and similar followers all get the Aid spirit and Spirit Regen and recover a PC's spirits by 10 each, taking turns to recharge in full.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on January 18, 2017, 11:55:05 AM
Weird, I don't remember the Alvatore at all...00 was one of my favorites too. Huh.

Just the first season's final boss. :p

Much earlier there's the Gundam Dendrobium (http://gundam.wikia.com/wiki/RX-78GP03_Gundam_%22Dendrobium%22) although he only appeared on the Stardust memory OVA from 1991.

And don't forget the METEOR (http://gundam.wikia.com/wiki/Mobile_suit_Embedded_Tactical_EnfORcer)s from Gundam SEED!
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on January 18, 2017, 01:15:34 PM
Well, having checked this and skipped... most of it.

At least I know I have a bonus feat to rearrange, since spirit regen stopped stacking after I last touched my feats. :T
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on February 08, 2017, 02:39:25 AM
Since Born to Fight is a [Pilot] feat, can Counter's bonus swift or immediate action be used to activate Born to Fight's ability to activate one of your pilot maneuvers?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on February 08, 2017, 07:10:48 PM
Mmh. Maybe the Spirit Up feat should also have a similar scaling maximum number of picks.
I'll wait until somebody finds a way to abuse that one.

Am I correct in assuming that when the arsenal options state that they increase the spirit points of the pilot the extra spirit points apply only while the pilot is controlling the mecha? Those from the Arsenal accessories affect any pilot so it seems they are gone when the pilot is on foot and must be recovered once the pilot controls the mecha again. The Soul of the Machine upgrade however refers to the main pilot, so the effect follows that one pilot no matter who is currently piloting the mecha although it may still require for the main pilot to be controlling he mecha for him to gain the benefits. It is unclear.
Yes only while controling the mecha.

Is the Moon Vanguard meant to have access to the new pilot martial disciplines as well?
Yes got to go and update the moon vanguard.

Also, almost every class restricts the use of a spirit to once per turn per spirit. That limit should probably be generalized by adding it in the spirit's thread.
Too much work at this point for no pratical gain.

Something else... I noticed that since there is no range to spirits and since you encourage the idea of having supporters on the sides that assist with spirit usage, there should probably also be a limit on the application of a spirit as well for the receiver, such as each spirit cannot be applied to the same target more than once unless it specifically has a clause on the matter (such as Provoke).
That only results in everybody using scan on their own allies to screw enemy scans. Still eat the save penalty but will block the other side from learning anything.

It is otherwise possible to have level 1 minions and similar followers all get the Aid spirit and Spirit Regen and recover a PC's spirits by 10 each, taking turns to recharge in full.
I may rememember a SRW boss or ten like that.

Kill. Mooks. First.

Mind you, to do it with 1st level mooks they'll need at least 36  SP at first level meaning Spirit up x2. So meh, added limitation to Spirit up and now it's impossible that early.

Since Born to Fight is a [Pilot] feat, can Counter's bonus swift or immediate action be used to activate Born to Fight's ability to activate one of your pilot maneuvers?

No, since Born to Fight isn't the one being activated.[
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on February 08, 2017, 11:23:00 PM
Quote
That only results in everybody using scan on their own allies to screw enemy scans. Still eat the save penalty but will block the other side from learning anything.
Could not apply to Scan since it targets enemies rather than allies.

Quote
I may rememember a SRW boss or ten like that.
Kill. Mooks. First.
Since there is no distance or anything like that to use spirits, you already confirmed that it was all right for hidden supports to use Spirits on their allies while they hide among the crowds or watch the battle from afar. The mook could also be within the mecha as with the pilot, then use the spirits on the pilot. Kind of like the ship captain's second/third in command.

Quote
Mind you, to do it with 1st level mooks they'll need at least 36  SP at first level meaning Spirit up x2. So meh, added limitation to Spirit up and now it's impossible that early.
Real Pilot 1 = 6 spirit points + 20 spirit up + 5 custom color arsenal = 31 spirit points to activate Aid (30 for real pilots)
Have it put its bonus feat on Spirit Regen to get a 3 rounds cooldown per use. Rotate with the other followers.
Have them all watch the battle on a TV screen in their mecha somewhere away so they stay safe.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on February 09, 2017, 01:14:14 AM
More annoying questions about Born to Fight.

Can you Overcharge your accessories while outside your mecha?

As examples ranging from abusive (overcharging to regain spirit while not near your mecha) to useful (overcharging to reduce or prevent damage to your mecha if it's in trouble and for some reason [like the ship carrying it exploding!] and you're not piloting it)

Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on February 09, 2017, 01:34:06 AM
You could probably overcharge your Moon Vanguard accessories but not the mecha's if you're not piloting it.
If the nano armor gets wrecked, you'd still have the accessories on so technically still should be able to overcharge them.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on February 11, 2017, 06:58:11 AM
Quote
That only results in everybody using scan on their own allies to screw enemy scans. Still eat the save penalty but will block the other side from learning anything.
Could not apply to Scan since it targets enemies rather than allies.
I don't want to hear that from somebody who made multiple in-game posts claiming "enemies" and "allies" are meaningless tags that just mean "whatever target I wish in this split second".

Quote
I may rememember a SRW boss or ten like that.
Kill. Mooks. First.
Since there is no distance or anything like that to use spirits, you already confirmed that it was all right for hidden supports to use Spirits on their allies while they hide among the crowds or watch the battle from afar. The mook could also be within the mecha as with the pilot, then use the spirits on the pilot. Kind of like the ship captain's second/third in command.
Ok, freeloaders no longer can use spirits (or anything else besides basic speech that cannot trigger other stuff) unless they have a specific ability for that.

As for hiding in the crowd, that's why you open the battle with a colony drop or ten. In the case of goody two shoes that's why you call evacuations.

Quote
Mind you, to do it with 1st level mooks they'll need at least 36  SP at first level meaning Spirit up x2. So meh, added limitation to Spirit up and now it's impossible that early.
Real Pilot 1 = 6 spirit points + 20 spirit up + 5 custom color arsenal = 31 spirit points to activate Aid (30 for real pilots)
Have it put its bonus feat on Spirit Regen to get a 3 rounds cooldown per use. Rotate with the other followers.
Have them all watch the battle on a TV screen in their mecha somewhere away so they stay safe.
Smoke launchers exist for a reason. If your opponent managed to set up full multi-angle real-time video with no lag at all, you may want to re-consider your anti-jamming capacities and your ability to pick your battlegrounds.


More annoying questions about Born to Fight.

Can you Overcharge your accessories while outside your mecha?

As examples ranging from abusive (overcharging to regain spirit while not near your mecha) to useful (overcharging to reduce or prevent damage to your mecha if it's in trouble and for some reason [like the ship carrying it exploding!] and you're not piloting it)
No, need to be inside mecha.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on February 11, 2017, 08:17:13 AM
To clarify, does that also include having the nanoarmor equipped and not just inactively stored and/or broken like in Anomander's example?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on February 11, 2017, 09:08:31 AM
Inactively stored wouldn't work, but broken with acessories still working would.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on February 11, 2017, 05:41:48 PM
Quote
I don't want to hear that from somebody who made multiple in-game posts claiming "enemies" and "allies" are meaningless tags that just mean "whatever target I wish in this split second".
It was to use an ability that works on allies to save someone that seemed forced to suicide, I recall. And you refused it then.
But later you got real set on abilities that work on enemies to also work on allies for weird reasons, so I'm not sure anymore what your stance on targeting is.
Either way, the idea was that Scan could specifically mention that it can be applied more than once on the same target, since it targets opponents, like Provoke.
Just trying to help. If you're fine with the same spirit applying multiple times among allies, then all right.
You'll notice I'm actually trying to have you shut down my options before I use them.

Quote
Ok, freeloaders no longer can use spirits (or anything else besides basic speech that cannot trigger other stuff) unless they have a specific ability for that.
Excellent. Thank you. I think it is safe to assume they can still take an action to exit the mecha, though. It could also make sense that they wouldn't be able to unless the pilot opens the door/kicks them out.

Quote
As for hiding in the crowd, that's why you open the battle with a colony drop or ten. In the case of goody two shoes that's why you call evacuations.
Myeah. Commoners on foot have a speed of 30-ft and they may well be in a mecha battleground measured on mu-scale. By the time they evacuate anywhere battle's probably over anyway. If they can evacuate. Anyway, if you're fine with what this makes possible, then all right.

Quote
Smoke launchers exist for a reason. If your opponent managed to set up full multi-angle real-time video with no lag at all, you may want to re-consider your anti-jamming capacities and your ability to pick your battlegrounds.
Good advice. Though wait, is the setting offering anti-jamming options?
Speaking of jammers, Heaven-Sailing Dragon's jammer mentions blocking all communications. That's a very general term since it technically also blocks sound/speech.
Also, considering a jammer can have immense range while itself being anywhere within it, should it be possible for those within the jammer to detect the direction of the jammer? Typical divinations to find stuff like scrying should count as a communication and are jammed as well.
It would make sense for a more local jamming since the hole in the radar is there and you can see the surface blocked, but when it applies to entire planets and wider, it gets trickier to make a mission on "We must destroy the Jamming engine", which are usually fixed locations such as those that would have been built through a Support Staff base and they cannot run away out of reach and reapply the jammer. Or stealth off and remain underground somewhere where nobody will ever find it.
I'm not sure the campaign setting is offering a counter to jamming beyond "we jammed it for you too." Perhaps making the uber jams an additional support staff base option, making the ship's more local such as the immediate battlefield and making it possible for those with wide communication reach to detect the hole in their radar, which would allow one to calculate the position of the jammer based on the intersecting spheres of effect.
Speaking of the support staff, I'm very interested in the remaining specializations. Particularly the Science.
Also:
Quote
You can use the Jammer and Communication Hub simultaneously, but half of all your energy recovery is halved.
That's probably meant to apply the halving once rather than making it a quarter.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on February 13, 2017, 03:38:22 PM
Anomander, is there a reason that Soul of the Mechanic doesn't grant a branch of soul tech with the feat alone, and you have to spend a spirit to get any benefit out of the feat at all? I feel that it grants supers a viable build that isn't just maximum growth, and I don't want my super pilot player to feel restricted from taking it because he has to give up a spirit as well.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on February 14, 2017, 12:17:49 AM
The feat grants additional options with a class feature. There is no feat that grants extra spirits, so getting a free tech branch seems too good an extra.
I could also turn it into an alternate class feature that allows a pilot to get a bonus Engineer feat upon selecting Soul of the Mechanic if choose to forfeit the ability to use spirit points for anything else than Custom Soul Tech. And then a feat must be spend to access spirits normally if the pilot changes his mind.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on February 14, 2017, 09:09:54 AM
I feel that it grants supers a viable build that isn't just maximum growth

Got a burst of inspiration and on the line of Great One added Tek Knight for smaller super robots, Zero Pattern for medium super robots, plus Super Servos and Absolute Barrier upgrade lines.

Quote
I don't want to hear that from somebody who made multiple in-game posts claiming "enemies" and "allies" are meaningless tags that just mean "whatever target I wish in this split second".
It was to use an ability that works on allies to save someone that seemed forced to suicide, I recall. And you refused it then.
But later you got real set on abilities that work on enemies to also work on allies for weird reasons, so I'm not sure anymore what your stance on targeting is.
The same as always, an alliance is a two-way street, while it only takes one to want to hurt somebody else. Can't help somebody that does not want to be helped and everything.

Either way, the idea was that Scan could specifically mention that it can be applied more than once on the same target, since it targets opponents, like Provoke.
Just trying to help. If you're fine with the same spirit applying multiple times among allies, then all right.
You'll notice I'm actually trying to have you shut down my options before I use them.
Fair enough, but spamming benefical spirits in an ally when the going gets tough is a staple of both the computer games and related media. Army mooks cheering their commander on even if their weapons are outclassed is something that should be viable.

Quote
Ok, freeloaders no longer can use spirits (or anything else besides basic speech that cannot trigger other stuff) unless they have a specific ability for that.
Excellent. Thank you. I think it is safe to assume they can still take an action to exit the mecha, though. It could also make sense that they wouldn't be able to unless the pilot opens the door/kicks them out.
Good point, added clause to exit and opposed rolls if the pilot does not want to let the other out.

Quote
As for hiding in the crowd, that's why you open the battle with a colony drop or ten. In the case of goody two shoes that's why you call evacuations.
Myeah. Commoners on foot have a speed of 30-ft and they may well be in a mecha battleground measured on mu-scale. By the time they evacuate anywhere battle's probably over anyway. If they can evacuate. Anyway, if you're fine with what this makes possible, then all right.
That's one of the reasons I made the Support Staff able to spam transports and bunkers and whatnot.

Quote
Smoke launchers exist for a reason. If your opponent managed to set up full multi-angle real-time video with no lag at all, you may want to re-consider your anti-jamming capacities and your ability to pick your battlegrounds.
Good advice. Though wait, is the setting offering anti-jamming options?
Speaking of jammers, Heaven-Sailing Dragon's jammer mentions blocking all communications. That's a very general term since it technically also blocks sound/speech.
Yes it's supposed to be broad. Speaking of which nerfed it a bit by reducing communication range to 30 mu max instead of fully blocking.

Also, considering a jammer can have immense range while itself being anywhere within it, should it be possible for those within the jammer to detect the direction of the jammer? Typical divinations to find stuff like scrying should count as a communication and are jammed as well.
It would make sense for a more local jamming since the hole in the radar is there and you can see the surface blocked, but when it applies to entire planets and wider, it gets trickier to make a mission on "We must destroy the Jamming engine", which are usually fixed locations such as those that would have been built through a Support Staff base and they cannot run away out of reach and reapply the jammer. Or stealth off and remain underground somewhere where nobody will ever find it.
Jammers being super-effective is kinda needed for any mecha story, in particular if you want battles to happen close enough that hitting stuff with pointy plasma sticks is still a viable tactic.

Also many forces in mecha settings are mobile while remaining heavily jammed. From Doctor Hell's robot castle to the White Base and their sucessors. Often finding, intercepting and destroying such targets is the main objective of the campaign. You need to get creative from capturing and interrogating prisioners to setting up baits to disguises or provoking them to come out somehow to outwit them to predict their next target to plain old sending scouts to search the area.

I'm not sure the campaign setting is offering a counter to jamming beyond "we jammed it for you too." Perhaps making the uber jams an additional support staff base option, making the ship's more local such as the immediate battlefield and making it possible for those with wide communication reach to detect the hole in their radar, which would allow one to calculate the position of the jammer based on the intersecting spheres of effect.
If that's a viable tactic, then there's no need for mechas, you just inform the artillery/missile division and blow up your enemies from beyond the horizon.


Speaking of the support staff, I'm very interested in the remaining specializations. Particularly the Science.
Seems like I've worked some motivation for this today, let's see if I can take care of that.

Also:
Quote
You can use the Jammer and Communication Hub simultaneously, but half of all your energy recovery is halved.
That's probably meant to apply the halving once rather than making it a quarter.
Fixed, thanks.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on February 14, 2017, 11:17:18 AM
All good!

Quote
If that's a viable tactic, then there's no need for mechas, you just inform the artillery/missile division and blow up your enemies from beyond the horizon.
Not necessarily. Jammers are often in a base, which could well have anti-artillery and force shields. Coincidentally, the big mission is also taking down the mighty forceshield, which could protect the jammer. Not to say that with the current pilot disciplines a mecha/ship could well be an anti-artillery force all by itself.
Working out the area of effect of the jam on hidden jammers that aren't moving all that much to calculate its source's position seems like very valid tactic. Especially to force it to move if it is mobile. And stuff that moves is easier to notice. Prevents the case of the galaxy-wide underground hidden jammer that everyone forgot about except the big bad.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on February 14, 2017, 01:23:05 PM
My super pilot is expressing much interest in the new Zero Pattern upgrade, specifically Zero Weapon, and wants to know if the Zero Reach option will improve his Area melee Main Weapon. I'm inclined to think yes, but by the rules it doesn't. What's the intention for that interaction?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on February 14, 2017, 01:46:50 PM
Its all nice though I'll note that Zero Stance is absolutely abusable in so many ways. It also doesn't have a penalty for being sizes away from medium.
One example among many; a mecha could use buffs before splitting, such as the Zeal spirit. Then all your copies have two rounds, and can end the turn by undoing the copies.

Some mention the Fine size category. But miniaturization cannot go below diminutive.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on February 14, 2017, 03:20:18 PM
Its all nice though I'll note that Zero Stance is absolutely abusable in so many ways. It also doesn't have a penalty for being sizes away from medium.

Growth adds an AC/Attack penalty but provides a +3.5dmg increase to each weapon.
Plating: +5~+35hp & +1~+9dr, 1/2 dodge.
Power: +2~+15 damage, but 1/2 speed.
Agility: +5~+35 speed & +1~+6 dodge, but 1/2 n-ac.
Targeting: +2~+14 attack, but 1/2 dr.


Miniaturization adds an AC/Attack bonus, and doesn't penalize damage.
Reactor: +5~+35 energy, but 1/2 spirit.
Soul: +5~+20 spirit & +1~+4 spirit regen, but 1/2 hp.
Storage: +1 hardpoint & +20 arsenal, but 1/2 energy.
Servos: +5~+8 to str-checks & a fuck-ton of carry increases, but 1/2 arsenal.

   To bribe you from not changing your size you have the Zero line.
Arts: +1 pilot level with maneuvers & +1 to maneuvers DCs per 4 pilot levels, size changes penalize this.
-Stance: count as being in every stance at once for the purposes of feats.
-Attack: strikes deal +(stance_levelx2) damage, also Zero can be taken once but Attack multiple times?
-Defense: +4 saves/ac/opposed_rolls from a martial school and you become immune to two maneuvers.
Entropy: elemental resist 5 & +1d6 to weapons & a 30ft aura that deals 1d4 per four levels, size changes penalize this.
-Fog: adds fog to the aura.
-Range: aura halves ranged weapons, your brain will hurt thinking about this.
-Speed: everyone else has 1/2 speed in your aura.
State: duplicate your self into a fragile little glass cannon that cannot heal/recover/regenerate, size changes don't care.
-No choices?
Weapon: +3 ac/dr/saves/str_checks if you use one weapon (also +50% ability dmg too), size changes penalize this.
-Swing: free action whirlwind when you use a martial strike.
-Reach: reach for melee, no aoo for ranged.
-Range: melee becomes 20ft ranged with brutal & ranged gains +40mu.

Some suggested changes.
1. Change ft to mu.
2. Larger mechs should have the Tek's Storage and smaller mechs should have Great's Agility.
3. Zero State needs choices, probably ones that make it less of a suicide option like allowing one of hp/spirit/energy to regenerate.
4. Zero State should also be penalized based on size.
5. Zero State's 32 copies is excessively game breaking. After a certain point they all have 0 ammo/energy and die in one hit (in phantasy star that point is "one clone") meaning all you're doing is asking for them to fully abuse it's offensive power. Like sending 2~4 clones away so they can never die and using class features or tank mode's limitless built-in ammo to deal thousands of damage (or just be a halfing with swarmfighting and melee them to death). I'd go with 1 clone per 4hd, so it's slightly less broken, but see the 6th entry too.
6. Zero State's clones should not be an XP-free copy of the banned Ice Assassin Spell, a little consistent with what you claim to hate and your homebrew being thirty two times worse would be useful. Maybe the clones can act like a Familiar's Mech but with a better stat block. Like it'll have 1/4 hp, 1/5th energy, one weapon that deals built-in+mod damage that ignores DR, or something.
7. Zero Arts, holy crap. Thanks to the +3 stacking bonus to your level (ie IL), you get 9th level maneuvers by lv14. Did you think Touhou's x5 stuff was broken? Now get it three levels faster!
8. Andomander knows your crazy homebrew better and things Zero Art's Stance is also pretty insane.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on February 14, 2017, 03:51:24 PM
I'm pretty sure the increase to pilot level is only meant to only affect the modifiers based on pilot level rather than maneuver accessibility. Much like a bonus to caster level only affect the spells themselves. So, an effective pilot level increase, like the super pilot's favored maneuvers and the Numan's racial thingy. That's a lot of potential pilot level increases.
Might want to be clarified all the same indeed.

I similarly have a lot of balance recommendations for the new abilities since many are quite over the top compared to their Great One equivalent. The Zero line, mostly, considering that they get free increases for not changing size while actually changing size has its own upgrade cost. But Soro summed up quite a few of these points nicely.

But there is a lot more to comment on, when I'll have time to.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on February 14, 2017, 06:18:35 PM
My super pilot is expressing much interest in the new Zero Pattern upgrade, specifically Zero Weapon, and wants to know if the Zero Reach option will improve his Area melee Main Weapon. I'm inclined to think yes, but by the rules it doesn't. What's the intention for that interaction?

I hadn't thought of that particular interaction but you're right there should be synergy so added it.

Quote
If that's a viable tactic, then there's no need for mechas, you just inform the artillery/missile division and blow up your enemies from beyond the horizon.
Not necessarily. Jammers are often in a base, which could well have anti-artillery and force shields. Coincidentally, the big mission is also taking down the mighty forceshield, which could protect the jammer. Not to say that with the current pilot disciplines a mecha/ship could well be an anti-artillery force all by itself.
Working out the area of effect of the jam on hidden jammers that aren't moving all that much to calculate its source's position seems like very valid tactic. Especially to force it to move if it is mobile. And stuff that moves is easier to notice. Prevents the case of the galaxy-wide underground hidden jammer that everyone forgot about except the big bad.
I'll consider it after rules for super fortifications are in place.

Its all nice though I'll note that Zero Stance is absolutely abusable in so many ways. It also doesn't have a penalty for being sizes away from medium.
One example among many; a mecha could use buffs before splitting, such as the Zeal spirit. Then all your copies have two rounds, and can end the turn by undoing the copies.
Yeah, forgot the anti-size change clause. Added that plus clause against temp buffs.

Some mention the Fine size category. But miniaturization cannot go below diminutive.
Just planning ahead.

Its all nice though I'll note that Zero Stance is absolutely abusable in so many ways. It also doesn't have a penalty for being sizes away from medium.

Growth adds an AC/Attack penalty but provides a +3.5dmg increase to each weapon.
Plating: +5~+35hp & +1~+9dr, 1/2 dodge.
Power: +2~+15 damage, but 1/2 speed.
Agility: +5~+35 speed & +1~+6 dodge, but 1/2 n-ac.
Targeting: +2~+14 attack, but 1/2 dr.


Miniaturization adds an AC/Attack bonus, and doesn't penalize damage.
Reactor: +5~+35 energy, but 1/2 spirit.
Soul: +5~+20 spirit & +1~+4 spirit regen, but 1/2 hp.
Storage: +1 hardpoint & +20 arsenal, but 1/2 energy.
Servos: +5~+8 to str-checks & a fuck-ton of carry increases, but 1/2 arsenal.

   To bribe you from not changing your size you have the Zero line.
Arts: +1 pilot level with maneuvers & +1 to maneuvers DCs per 4 pilot levels, size changes penalize this.
-Stance: count as being in every stance at once for the purposes of feats.
-Attack: strikes deal +(stance_levelx2) damage, also Zero can be taken once but Attack multiple times?
-Defense: +4 saves/ac/opposed_rolls from a martial school and you become immune to two maneuvers.
Entropy: elemental resist 5 & +1d6 to weapons & a 30ft aura that deals 1d4 per four levels, size changes penalize this.
-Fog: adds fog to the aura.
-Range: aura halves ranged weapons, your brain will hurt thinking about this.
-Speed: everyone else has 1/2 speed in your aura.
State: duplicate your self into a fragile little glass cannon that cannot heal/recover/regenerate, size changes don't care.
-No choices?
Weapon: +3 ac/dr/saves/str_checks if you use one weapon (also +50% ability dmg too), size changes penalize this.
-Swing: free action whirlwind when you use a martial strike.
-Reach: reach for melee, no aoo for ranged.
-Range: melee becomes 20ft ranged with brutal & ranged gains +40mu.

Some suggested changes.
1. Change ft to mu.
2. Larger mechs should have the Tek's Storage and smaller mechs should have Great's Agility.
3. Zero State needs choices, probably ones that make it less of a suicide option like allowing one of hp/spirit/energy to regenerate.
4. Zero State should also be penalized based on size.
5. Zero State's 32 copies is excessively game breaking. After a certain point they all have 0 ammo/energy and die in one hit (in phantasy star that point is "one clone") meaning all you're doing is asking for them to fully abuse it's offensive power. Like sending 2~4 clones away so they can never die and using class features or tank mode's limitless built-in ammo to deal thousands of damage (or just be a halfing with swarmfighting and melee them to death). I'd go with 1 clone per 4hd, so it's slightly less broken, but see the 6th entry too.
6. Zero State's clones should not be an XP-free copy of the banned Ice Assassin Spell, a little consistent with what you claim to hate and your homebrew being thirty two times worse would be useful. Maybe the clones can act like a Familiar's Mech but with a better stat block. Like it'll have 1/4 hp, 1/5th energy, one weapon that deals built-in+mod damage that ignores DR, or something.
7. Zero Arts, holy crap. Thanks to the +3 stacking bonus to your level (ie IL), you get 9th level maneuvers by lv14. Did you think Touhou's x5 stuff was broken? Now get it three levels faster!
8. Andomander knows your crazy homebrew better and things Zero Art's Stance is also pretty insane.
1. Done.
2. That sounds logic. And super robots are about kicking logic to the curb. Also bigger robots already benefit from investing in more weapons since they deal more damage.
3/4/5/6. Yes, I forgot the anti-size clause for Zero State. Overhauled quite a bit following your suggestions. New highights include only up to two weapons remain operational, only 1 copy per 4 PL base, copies act worst than the original the more you have, and picks as you level up including HP/energy/spirit recovery and reduced penalties+more clones in return for them being limited to basic meleeing without any feats even. Also for the record, Ice Assassin has no cap besides how many spell slots you can throw at it along a Thought Bottle.
7. As pointed out already the PL increase is only meant for maneuver effects. Clarified.
8. I blame it on Aldonoah Zero.

I similarly have a lot of balance recommendations for the new abilities since many are quite over the top compared to their Great One equivalent. The Zero line, mostly, considering that they get free increases for not changing size while actually changing size has its own upgrade cost. But Soro summed up quite a few of these points nicely.
Geez, one may think that there's no benefits for being big/small by itself. :P

But there is a lot more to comment on, when I'll have time to.
Yes, more unpaid work, everything's going according to the plan. Gendo.jpg
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on February 14, 2017, 09:24:41 PM
3/4/5/6. Yes, I forgot the anti-size clause for Zero State. Overhauled quite a bit following your suggestions.
And it's looking better. All through the -2 pilot level kind of has the same problem as the Maneuver side, it seems like every time you split you need to recalculate upgrades. Also as written the Arcane/Divine Pilot pay massively to use the ability, like 2~4 Spell Slots of each level just for splitting once, on top of every Slot used for some continued benefit prior to splitting. And what happens if the Pilot decides to step out? And sell his Magical Items?

Here is my attempt at wording this thing, it might need some more tweaks to get a concept across idk.
Quote
Zero State(Su/Ex): As a swift action your mecha can split in a perfect copies of itself provided no other copies currently exist, they appear adjacent to the original and can take their turn following the original's. When one of the copies die, if another exists, it simply vanishes in a personalized visual display. Since the mechs are separate they use their own separate pools of Hit Points, Energy, and Ammo evenly split between them at the time of fission (rounded down). This effect does not duplicate the pilot or anything stored within, rather they move into a quantum state in an extraplanar space and as long as the mech remains split anything inside is unable to exit by any means. Each mech benefits from having the pilot normally, including a split up portion of the pilot's HP pool for determining when a copy should vanish, except since only one pilot technically exists any resources such as Spell Slots, Readied Maneuvers, Charges remaining on Magical Items and other such effects are all depleted from the same pool, through the pilot is only killed if all the mechs are destroyed. Special effects already in place of the split are copied to each but each mech's turn reduces the duration as if an entire round has passed. The original and copies are treated as if they had two negative levels except they do not suffer a loss to their Spell Slots. When the mechs split most weapons become nonfunctional, each one gains up to two weapons the original full mech had access to.

For every 4 Super Pilot levels of the original you can maintain one extra copy simultaneously, but each extra copy increases the effective negative level penalty shared by all of them by one and you also gain one ability chosen from below. For each size category the super robot is away from medium count your pilot level as 4 lower for the purpose of this ability. While split none of the clones can recover Energy/Ammo/Spirit Points/HP or other limited uses abilities/resources by any means. Any copy can dismiss another as a swift action which reduces the effective negative level penalties as appropriate for the number of remaining duplicates. There is no true "original" while split, rather when there is only one remaining it regains it's nonfunctional weapons and the pilot is able to exit. You cannot use this ability if any of the split mechs (or pilot pools) would have a negative hit point value after splitting or interplanar movement are prohibited when you attempt to split. Finally the duplicates only last for a number of minutes equal to your HD, after which point all but the one of your choice vanishes as if dismissed.
It's a bit wordy but answers a few things and prevents a ton of combinations. It also prevents you from copying Zeal while allowing you to keep Wish-granted Inherent bonuses to ability scores too. Plus trapping a single-incarnation of the pilot just prevents a lot of imaginative abuse.

It also reduces the penalty to casters. Like Super Pilots can split up then send their "primary" in and die while their secondary clone that hung back in a safe house serves to negate their death without any penalties. And in between Encounters he can recombine, fully heal up and charge his Energy, Reready his Maneuvers, and resplit to set things up against for risk free Encounter within five minutes. And even if he were to resplit again during an Encounter him and his clones remain in their respective Stances and benefit from whatever additional effects they include. But as you had it set up, if an Arcane wanted to do the same thing it'd auto-wipe half the Spell Slots each time, the clone wipes the original's source of continued benefits, and they would have to burn another series of Slots for each buff they like.

Single-pool and multiplying the duration removes the initial Slot loss and doesn't penalize you because you decided to split after casting Haste on the party or losing the benefits of Inspire Courage because the Bard started singing a round before you split. But you still functionally have to cast Greater Mage Armor twice if you want two mechs to benefit from the spell for the same duration, or cast it three times if you want three mechs to benefit from it and so on. In this regard it also works a little against long duration buffs (such as Persist) too. Instead of splitting and uber buffing a "primary" target capable of healing HP and just forgoing Energy/Ammo, or maybe a Divine Pilot uses Temp HP and wants to recover energy for damage/barriers, or w/e you can imagine to increase the "primary's survivability. Setting up the anti-death clone reduces the buffs of the main combatant which can cause them to drop even if he finds a way to avoid being killed. He'll have a reason to merge back together and remain together beyond simply replenishing certain statistics.

Finally just a limited duration just plain caps popping a clone out in the morning anyway. Per round almost seems too limiting, specially given the other nerfs applied, but minutes let's you play with the ability for scouting or such.

Also for the record, Ice Assassin has no cap besides how many spell slots you can throw at it along a Thought Bottle.
Quote from: FAQ
Can a thought bottle (CAr, 150) be used to restore XP lost from casting a spell or creating a magic item?
No. The item description indicates that its intended function is to restore lost levels. It doesn’t erase XP costs from other sources.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on February 15, 2017, 03:13:32 AM
(click to show/hide)
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on February 15, 2017, 12:18:54 PM
Progression rates for, well everything, being horribly off is kind of standard for Ols's homebrew through :p

Anyway, after reading your list over Zero State it looks like I addressed almost all of those except passengers/storage so that's really not to bad for a first pass and such a difficult ability to handle. After sleeping on it I think a duration on it would probably help some things too since it'd lessen it's save-state capability. Edit, just patched in a 1min/HD to it.

Zero Circuit should just be replaced with the elephant in the room. We're all thinking Naruto's Shadow Clones here so just go 100% on it. When dismissed half of the clone's HP/Energy/Ammo and such is returned to the remaining clones. The does let you use them as storage batteries, but they could already kind of do that like a Divine Pilot could use Touch of Healing to constantly cross heal each other. But at least at 1/2 rate they still lose something.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on February 15, 2017, 03:42:06 PM
Another thought on Zero Status to consider; the use of Innovade to control the mecha remotely.
How everything is split around would raise its own series of questions. For one, are each copy under a stance? The original's stance may be dismissed if it counts as a temporary buff though the copies could then initiate a stance of their own since there is no limit to uses per day. Though it may be limited to only a single copy being able to be under the effect of a stance.

Quote
After sleeping on it I think a duration on it would probably help some things too since it'd lessen it's save-state capability. Edit, just patched in a 1min/HD to it.
Hm. Though adding a duration further makes it feel like an ability that doesn't belong in the Super Upgrade options.
To be honest, the first thing I thought about when I read Zero Stance is that it feels an awful lot like the Body out of Body Wujen spell. (I think that's what it's called, at least). And I recall that being a level 8 or 7 spell. And very much worth it.

Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on February 15, 2017, 04:49:40 PM
Stances are copied when they were split because they are not a finite resource. And in my rewrite, since the Pilot doesn't split, every Mech remains in the same Stance simultaneously rather than each one adapting a different one and w/e combos can be found through that.

Anyway, there is a ton of copy effects so my first thought was Fission, but Ice Assassin, Body Outside a Body, Simulacrum, Trickery Devotion, the plane of Mirrors, Lucid Dreaming, Mirror of Opposition, Shadow Double, Osl's Ancient Temple Ghostly Wheel of Pain, Osl's Venerable Battlefield's God Sign-Ancient Fate Linked by Cedars, or Osl's Doll Judgement's Puppeteer Theater, and maybe even Forest Child I suppose can all ring the bell. But you're right it feels more like a new ability than an upgrade. But it's not the first time Ols has printed something clear out of the blue.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on February 15, 2017, 07:07:58 PM
3/4/5/6. Yes, I forgot the anti-size clause for Zero State. Overhauled quite a bit following your suggestions.
And it's looking better. All through the -2 pilot level kind of has the same problem as the Maneuver side, it seems like every time you split you need to recalculate upgrades.
Clarified that the pilot level reduction is only for calculating ability effects, not which abilities you have available.

Also as written the Arcane/Divine Pilot pay massively to use the ability, like 2~4 Spell Slots of each level just for splitting once, on top of every Slot used for some continued benefit prior to splitting.
Excuse me for not making the upgrade super synergetic with the best ability in the game.

And what happens if the Pilot decides to step out?
They step out?

And sell his Magical Items?
The mecha is split. The pilot is split. Anything else isn't split, including personal items. Clarified, enjoy your half-naked piloting.

Here is my attempt at wording this thing, it might need some more tweaks to get a concept across idk.
Quote
Zero State(Su/Ex): As a swift action your mecha can split in a perfect copies of itself provided no other copies currently exist, they appear adjacent to the original and can take their turn following the original's. When one of the copies die, if another exists, it simply vanishes in a personalized visual display. Since the mechs are separate they use their own separate pools of Hit Points, Energy, and Ammo evenly split between them at the time of fission (rounded down). This effect does not duplicate the pilot or anything stored within, rather they move into a quantum state in an extraplanar space and as long as the mech remains split anything inside is unable to exit by any means. Each mech benefits from having the pilot normally, including a split up portion of the pilot's HP pool for determining when a copy should vanish, except since only one pilot technically exists any resources such as Spell Slots, Readied Maneuvers, Charges remaining on Magical Items and other such effects are all depleted from the same pool, through the pilot is only killed if all the mechs are destroyed. Special effects already in place of the split are copied to each but each mech's turn reduces the duration as if an entire round has passed. The original and copies are treated as if they had two negative levels except they do not suffer a loss to their Spell Slots. When the mechs split most weapons become nonfunctional, each one gains up to two weapons the original full mech had access to.
Let me stop you right there. I've had more than enough D&D discussions  that this final line can and will be interpreted as "every single weapon remains functional since 'most' is whatever number I please and thus shall be zero, plus gain two brand new weapons per copy".

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For every 4 Super Pilot levels of the original you can maintain one extra copy simultaneously, but each extra copy increases the effective negative level penalty shared by all of them by one and you also gain one ability chosen from below. For each size category the super robot is away from medium count your pilot level as 4 lower for the purpose of this ability. While split none of the clones can recover Energy/Ammo/Spirit Points/HP or other limited uses abilities/resources by any means. Any copy can dismiss another as a swift action which reduces the effective negative level penalties as appropriate for the number of remaining duplicates. There is no true "original" while split, rather when there is only one remaining it regains it's nonfunctional weapons and the pilot is able to exit. You cannot use this ability if any of the split mechs (or pilot pools) would have a negative hit point value after splitting or interplanar movement are prohibited when you attempt to split. Finally the duplicates only last for a number of minutes equal to your HD, after which point all but the one of your choice vanishes as if dismissed.
It's a bit wordy but answers a few things and prevents a ton of combinations. It also prevents you from copying Zeal while allowing you to keep Wish-granted Inherent bonuses to ability scores too. Plus trapping a single-incarnation of the pilot just prevents a lot of imaginative abuse.
Too bad, pilot splitting is non-negotiable for me. Gear multiplying never happened and Zeal was already specifically blocked from being copied. I believe that's everything covered besides your wish of making this the only upgrade with limited uses per day which would make it the only upgrade with limited uses per day and in case it wasn't clear none of the upgrades have limited uses per day. Aka no upgrades with limited uses per day.

It also reduces the penalty to casters. Like Super Pilots can split up then send their "primary" in and die while their secondary clone that hung back in a safe house serves to negate their death without any penalties. And in between Encounters he can recombine, fully heal up and charge his Energy, Reready his Maneuvers, and resplit to set things up against for risk free Encounter within five minutes. And even if he were to resplit again during an Encounter him and his clones remain in their respective Stances and benefit from whatever additional effects they include. But as you had it set up, if an Arcane wanted to do the same thing it'd auto-wipe half the Spell Slots each time, the clone wipes the original's source of continued benefits, and they would have to burn another series of Slots for each buff they like.
Oh noes, casters don't dominate everything for once! The horror! The unimaginable horror! It's almost like the Arcane Pilot didn't have his own copy minions in the form of the mech familiars!

But since you insist so much added Zero Arcana and Zero Line picks to lessen the cost of magic resource splitting.


Single-pool and multiplying the duration removes the initial Slot loss and doesn't penalize you because you decided to split after casting Haste on the party or losing the benefits of Inspire Courage because the Bard started singing a round before you split. But you still functionally have to cast Greater Mage Armor twice if you want two mechs to benefit from the spell for the same duration, or cast it three times if you want three mechs to benefit from it and so on. In this regard it also works a little against long duration buffs (such as Persist) too. Instead of splitting and uber buffing a "primary" target capable of healing HP and just forgoing Energy/Ammo, or maybe a Divine Pilot uses Temp HP and wants to recover energy for damage/barriers, or w/e you can imagine to increase the "primary's survivability. Setting up the anti-death clone reduces the buffs of the main combatant which can cause them to drop even if he finds a way to avoid being killed. He'll have a reason to merge back together and remain together beyond simply replenishing certain statistics.
I have no interest in providing any reason to promote copies merging back together. And keeping one somewhere safe is indeed an intended strategy. They'll still be fighting at a penalty for the extra safety.

Finally just a limited duration just plain caps popping a clone out in the morning anyway. Per round almost seems too limiting, specially given the other nerfs applied, but minutes let's you play with the ability for scouting or such.
"I love the smell of -X to AC, skills, overall reduced ability effectiveness and less than half HP/spirit/energy by the morning" doesn't exactly sound like the breakfast of champions to me.

Also for the record, Ice Assassin has no cap besides how many spell slots you can throw at it along a Thought Bottle.
Quote from: FAQ
Can a thought bottle (CAr, 150) be used to restore XP lost from casting a spell or creating a magic item?
No. The item description indicates that its intended function is to restore lost levels. It doesn’t erase XP costs from other sources.
Oh, that's pretty nice to know, thanks!  :)

Quote
Larger mechs should have the Tek's Storage and smaller mechs should have Great's Agility.
I'd say that speed is something more common to bigger creatures than smaller ones. Large core creatures often have a speed of 40 ft while smaller ones have a speed of 20 ft, for example.
I'd say Great Targeting for smaller creatures would make more sense, since big stuff get a size penalty to hit and smaller stuff get a bonus instead. Easier to be precise when you're smaller. Keeping it a Great One ability is better for my comp, though. It does feel like more arsenal/hardpoints for bigger stuff may make sense but usually equipment size is proportional.
Thing is smaller mechas already are already more precise by default.

Super Servos: Should it not be +1 per pick? The bonus to Disarm would stack with Target's increase to attack rolls, by the way.
Eeeeerrr, would anyone ever pick it if it was a measly +1 per point? Yes, Disarm stacks with targeting, but since Arsenal weapons are so easy to take in multiples nowadays I feel it's not that much of a problem.

Great One: Something I've noticed. They all get about an equivalent amount of effective super upgrade picks at medium size, but the equivalent number of bonus super upgrade picks per size increase isn't the same from one size increase to the next. Which means that some Great One picks are much more cost efficient than others.
For example, Great Agility is twice as efficient as Great Plating and Great Targeting is about twice as efficient as Great Agility and four times as efficient as Great Plating. They should all be equalized if we go with the premise that the upgrade point options are all of equal worth.
Great Plating- 4x plating +dodge bonus halved. /+~half plating /+~1x plating /+~2x plating /+~x3.5 plating
Great Agility- 4x agility  +natural armor halved. /+agility /+2x plating /+4x agility /+~7x agility
Great Targeting- 4x targeter + DR is halved. /+2x target /+5x targeter /+9x targeter /+14x targeter (wut!?)

Assuming these extras per size are not cumulative. It isn't clear.
They're  not cumulative indeed.
Agility and Targeting stacking faster is an illusion because with great size comes great penalties to AC and hit.
Although on review they were a bit wonky so reworked a bit. The basic idea is that indeed you get more precise/dodgier as you grow instead of barely keeping up with the size penalties.

Tek Reactor: 4x battery + but max Spirit is halved. + half battery /+1x battery /+2x battery /+3.5x battery. ; It follows the pattern for Great Plating. All good.

Tek Soul: 4x SotM /+1x SotM /+2x SotM /+ 3x SotM /+4x SotM. ; Upgrade point growth is superior to Great Plating/Tek Reactor. Also, careful with putting the HP halving at the very end after the growth for Fine, especially when only separated by a comma. It looks like it applies only to fine sized mechas, which is clearly not intended.
Moved the HP halving clause.

And again you need to take in account sinergies. Increasing max HP/energy is a lot more valuable since several effects here recover percentages of those not to mention the spirits that outright fully recover HP/energy, whereas most spirit recovering effects are static and thus having a bigger max does not help you recover faster.

Tek Storage : Before all else, I'll point that I do not think that having an upgrade of this kind for hyperdimensional storage is a good idea. Mostly considering that the value per point does not compare with the others since it can only be picked once per 4 pilot levels to begin with, which means that no matter what you get there the value is immense.
Consider, the default value is 2 hardpoints and 25 arsenal space. That's worth 3 hyperdimensional storage picks which requires 12 levels in super pilot by default.
The value per pick is exponential as well. 3 picks is worth 1+2+3 = 6 upgrade points. You spend only 4 upgrade points for this bundle.
Then you get an extra pick and almost a half the next size category, which is worth at least an extra 4 points for a total of 10 before further size categories. And that is all assuming that hyperdimentional storage upgrade points aren't taken on the side as well, which you can be is the case considering the worth per point pick of Tek Storage doesn't affect them, effectively increasing the point worth of Tek Storage to 9 at medium pre-super pilot level 8, a worth of 14 points pre-level 8 at small size, a worth of 12 points at medium size for levels 8-11, and effectively 18 points at small size for pilot level 8-11. A level 20 super pilot could normally not get more than 4 hyperdimensional storage picks for 10 points. This is nuts.
Well there's the part where energy is halved but I'll agree the initial version may've been too strong. Heavily nerfed it.

Tek Servos: 4x pick for half arsenal (which is a strange thing to halve considering that arsenal space isn't something they get much of by default anyway, essentially driving the pilot to just get Nanomachines/Mysterious Power instead). /+~2.5x pick /+~3x pick /+~3.5x. Strange progression rate. Better than Great Plating/Tek Reactor at some size tiers.
Actually was too small. Again, doesn't really matter the relation to super servos in a vacuum, it matters that it actually gets better as you decrease size, meaning overcoming the size penalties.

Zero Arts +1 pilot level and DC, which increases every 4 super pilot level. This is already pretty darn good by itself compared to the other Great/Tek upgrades considering the worth and rarity of the stat it increases. I think it is well worth the 4 upgrade points as is. Further, I'll note that, just like normal size increases/decreases, the Great and Tek upgrades have advantages and disadvantages, usually in the form of halving another stat. The Zero abilities have no penalty whatsoever, which effectively makes them twice as good.
 Plus you don't have to pay extra upgrade points to access the improvements even though the increases are more linear than exponential. Not good from a balance point of view. This means that, for all the Zero abilities, unless they are weaker than their Great/Tek counterparts, they are overpowered by default.
Those extras would also be worth a feat each. Another impression is that as is they make Super Robots superior to Real robots. They scale much better.
Zero Weapon demands you to use only one weapon, Zero State inflicts penalties whenever you use it.

Added penalties to Zero Arts (non-maneuver stuff gets worst) and Zero Entropy (gets elemental vulnerabilities).


Zero Entropy Let's see, each pick of Alien Alloy grants 10 resistance and reinforced +1. So resistance 5 being half of what is granted before the extra ability this would be sort of a quarter Alien Alloy pick. 1d6 deals an average of 3.5 extra damage when Great Power grants 4 damage, which can improves with weapon upgrade synergy, but has an halved stat penalty. Then add an auto damage aura. I'd say this ability too is as good if not better than a Great/Tek equivalent before the extra abilities.
Which would be overpowered even if they were a feat each, by the way.

The perpetual fog is very good though at least there is an arsenal counter provided within the same setting's material.

Zero Range is very, very good considering the low range of most of the arsenal and built-in weapons provided to the mechas by the setting itself.

Zero Speed is crazy. You the radius of the ability gets pretty big. At level 12 this is a 120-mu aura that sets the speed of everything else down to a quarter. So something out of your aura needs to travel at least 480 mu to reach you. Assuming there isn't fog on top that which you cannot see through since that would further halve your movement. A charge could be made with a speed of 240-ft, but that isn't within the range of most mechas at that level. The gains vs cost of the ability are just way too good. The aura just gets way too large for an overpowered extra that isn't even needed for the ability to be on par with the similar options to begin with.
Personally, I'd say that this ability should not be a super upgrade. It should be something else entirely, such as a prestige class ability, maneuvers or similar. I'd say the same for most of these Zero Extras. They don't feel like they belong with the rest of the kit.
Something that you seem to be overlooking on Zero Entropy is that the effects also screw up any nearby allies.
Anyway nerfed it somewhat so that those with resistance/immunity to the element get to overcome the penalties.

Prc to focus on the Zero abilities sounds like something worth doing in the future.

Zero State: The nerf makes it a lot harder to abuse but the potential is still there. The worst is taken care of by preventing copies from making more copies the same turn, still. I'll note, though, that even a single copy is amazing if only for the action economy value. For the same reason that Ancient Temple boost that creates a copy is so darn strong. It can multiple an entire combo.
Well yes but as seen in the campaign with Katherine it also burns resources pretty fast.

That said, here is what I think of the mechanics of the ability itself;
When the cloning is done, the two copies generated appear adjacent... but adjacent to what? To the original pre-split robot or adjacent to each-other? The former allows them to appear with distance between them.
Soro figured it out as well Indeed, the pilot should not be copied. It allows a plethora of abuse options common to any other effect that makes a copy of the user... but there is also abuse potential in the fact that it specifically copies the "main pilot", rather than just the pilot. Someone piloting another's super robot with this would be able to make a clone of the original pilot of the super robot with this ability.
Didn't plan that detail but I'm keeping it.

The ability also copies only the main pilot and the super robot, so any passengers and items stored within the robot aren't copied - the two copies of the original split thus infer that those stored objects and passengers drop off to the ground at the spot the original split from.
Items are split, added clause to block division if carrying passengers.

It also provides a source of sentient sacrifices off the copied pilots.
Good point, added clause that they're useless for sacrifices.

You can also get the copies to form a mob you can then lead, thus bypassing quite a few penalties.
Also added that copies coming too close will make one collapse automatically to prevent mob/unit shenigans.

You can also have the copied pilots leave the mecha for other tricks and get the Sentient upgrades to get a bunch of mecha copies that still follow your commands. I could go on but I think you get the point.
Ok, I'll bite, what's exactly so OP about half-naked pilots coming out?

The ability also assumes that the user has control over the copies.
No, just that they still have the same agenda. Unless you're highjacking somebody else's super robot in which case good luck explaining them why you're highjacking their super robot.

The ability also has a lot of utility outside of combat.
Definitely intended.

I've mixed feelings about Zero Circuit. It has OP potential despite the restrictions but they really help and tuning it down.
Otherwise, perhaps a range limit between the copies would be required. It makes "adventuring from the comfort of your home" by sending a copy to do the quests for minimum risks very, very tempting despite the more fragile state of the copy doing all the work.
Again, the copies are also plain worst than the original so you're reducing the chances of actually succeeding on the adventure to protect your skin which is kinda how 99% of mecha villains end up losing.

Zero Weapon: This one's a bit trickier to gauge. Kind of like a partial Super Servos/Agility/Plating with a bonus to saves, which has no real upgrade equivalent but we can guess it would be a costly one since it would be at least one upgrade per +1 bonus to saves. It depends on specific weapon usage, however, which diminishes the worth a slightly. As such, the original worth is indeed at least what one would expect of the original equivalent worth of a Great/Tek upgrade. The ability scales with pilot levels as well in a linear fashion, and does not actually have a penalty either, so it, too, is already on par if not superior to them before you even add the Extras.
Since when is being limited to a single weapon not a penalty?

Absolute Barrier: Considering that this is available starting at level 1 and that mechas now mostly begin with 100 energy, I'd say that in most cases this is superior to Gravity Wall. You also get a remarkable immunity as an extra, some of which are pretty darn rare and very difficult to acquire otherwise. Plainly OP, especially early.
Late game it is easier to work around using all the tricks that work on those energy shield abilities, but those are harder to do early game and it may get boring to play who breaks the other's shield first/who runs out of propellant packs first.
Heavy overhaul.

As an aside, I recall the Zero Range passive in PSO2 to be a ranged weapon option that makes them hit harder when you are close to the target. You make them get better range.

The translation I remember is Zero Distance, and it's already a Strike on Gun Maniac.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on February 15, 2017, 10:35:17 PM
So, the party has decided to take the HEATS feat and become a combiner, and as a result, we've now got a mech with 33 DR. The super pilot is thinking of taking the Defend feat (reduce damage by half as an immediate action). We're now unsure if Defend applies before or after DR. I'm inclined to think after, but I want to get confirmation from you, Oslecamo.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on February 16, 2017, 04:23:45 AM
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Thing is smaller mechas already are already more precise by default.
+Great One and such removing size penalties
I see! In that case you'll want to maintain the proportion for the speed increases of Great Agility to match Great Plating and only raise the AC bonus to compensate for the AC penalty. Getting bigger doesn't make you slower. If the main idea is to cover the size penalties, however, I'd also recommend to have the ability simply remove the size penalty instead of getting a higher flat bonus. This is to avoid getting that benefit from multiple sources to get a net improvement.
If you already have an ability to waive the size penalties, for example, Great Targeting would effectively give an extra 8 Targeting for "free".
Coincidentally, I was actually planning on taking such an ability myself.

Something in the same vein that would fit well into the Zero ability tree would be an ability that makes a mecha count as being a size category bigger or smaller per 4/super pilot level without actually changing its space, like a mecha powerful build/slight build. The effective pilot level would decrease normally for each size category away from medium.

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You need to take in account sinergies. Increasing max HP/energy is a lot more valuable since several effects here recover percentages of those not to mention the spirits that outright fully recover HP/energy, whereas most spirit recovering effects are static and thus having a bigger max does not help you recover faster.
Well aware, though I was only comparing the cost/effectiveness in upgrade points for each pick. I'm taking for granted that when you decided how much each upgrade option would grant of their respective bonus you already took synergy potential into account to make them equal in value as an upgrade point pick. Mechanically the proportion of worth per pick should remain equivalent.

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Zero Weapon demands you to use only one weapon, Zero State inflicts penalties whenever you use it.
Zero Weapon has no penalty. You can still use other weapons, you're just not getting rewarded for it. A penalty would be a disadvantage at all times.
Tek Soul halves your HP whether you use spirits or not. It doesn't care if you use what it gives you.
Zero State likewise doesn't penalize you while you're not using it.
I consider Zero Entropy to be fixed by the vulnerability and the bypasses.

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Ok, I'll bite, what's exactly so OP about half-naked pilots coming out?
The point was that I don't have to keep listing things that may make it abusable or raise game mechanics questions because it'll take a while before we cover everything.
Its potential is limited only by the imagination of whoever uses it and there is a lot just within your homebrew that would have pretty weird interactions with it.
I'm not saying it is hopeless. Certainly not. Just that the wish to make every copy real in every way entails a lot of ruling issues.
And sometimes quite important ones. For example, now that equipped gear is split between the copies but aren't lost when a copy is dismissed/destroyed, what happens to that gear? Does it fuse back between the remaining copies or does it drop down where the copy got dismissed/destroyed? Right now it seems to not fuse back and drop on spot. The questions keep coming to me even as I write this but I haven't the time to develop on them all.

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No, just that they still have the same agenda. Unless you're highjacking somebody else's super robot in which case good luck explaining them why you're highjacking their super robot.
If they are not under control, it leads to a perfectly logical end point; every pilot copy has its own sense of self and thus absolutely isn't interested in being the one to get dismissed/destroyed. They would each plot the destruction of the others so that they cannot be dismissed and then never use the ability again for fear of being destroyed in the process. Yes, of course, the entity they are representing would remain but speaking for the copy that will die forever, the notion isn't all that appealing. The remaining copies would still be you... but not really. Am I going too deep with this? I don't think so since this is a role playing game. A character using this effectively would require a pretty unusual way of thinking.

As for hijacking another pilot's mecha to make copies of that main pilot, that may have been part of the plan all along. You leave an ally behind with your mecha when you have to go places on foot and if there's trouble you can have that ally copy you and then dismiss the one who is in trouble.
If you're an enemy of that mecha's pilot, you can prepare the terrain to make it impossible for that copy to survive.
When you are ready to fight the original, have your ally make copies that gets insta-destroyed to split the original's resources again and again. The mecha would could be split while already at very low HP. If that enemy pilot had a great mecha weapon through one of his class abilities, you can then take it for yourself through the Gamble spirit. Take a feat through Gain as well. Those last two can be done with a prisoner in a myriad of ways anyway but that's another one.

Otherwise, that copy you'd have to explain yourself to would still be at half resources anyway, and not you since you didn't actually split, That copy is alone so you've got the upperhand.

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Absolute Barrier
Very good though there are some things that are odd or feels incomplete.
-It stops working if the mecha has 10 energy left or less. Why not 14 or lower when the cost is 15?
-"You cannot pick an ability that you chose as your Absolute Barrier's vulnerability." What is that supposed to refer to? The only vulnerability are beams/missile weapons and those aren't in the list of extra thing the barrier makes you impervious to.
-"If a weapon has both your vulnerability and immunity,  [...]" That sentence is incomplete and has no meaning.

Thanks for taking care of those so quickly!

=====================

On the support staff class (super pilot version), how does it multiclass with other classes that count as Super Pilot?
Does it get half upgrades only from the Support Staff levels or does it affect those of the Arcane Pilot / Super Pilot as well? My reading is that it affects them all.
Also, are the spirits (Revival) and (Huge Encouragement) indeed meant to be Super Pilot or should they have been Ship Captain? Same for the Real's Aid. Spirits that affect other mechas are typically ship captain stuff. Just making sure.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on February 16, 2017, 08:11:21 PM
Edit - Playing with displays because I can.
Also table formatting works on quotes.
Excuse me for not making the upgrade super synergetic with the best ability in the game.
Nah it'll work just fine with Zero State.
Clarified, enjoy your half-naked piloting.
You wrote that sentence like you took something away. I just compared to Ice Assassin which is 5,000xp vs free, single clone vs twenty, 17th lvl vs 1st, and they already came naked unlike your homebrew.
Let me stop you right there. I've had more than enough D&D discussions  that this final line can and will be interpreted as "every single weapon remains functional since 'most' is whatever number I please
Let me stop you right there, if that's like the only nitpick you can try to argue is broken you're giving me a compliment.
"I love the smell of -X to AC, skills, overall reduced ability effectiveness and less than half HP/spirit/energy by the morning" doesn't exactly sound like the breakfast of champions to me.
(N-2)x2 is only a penalty if N is less than 3.
Oh noes, casters don't dominate everything for once! The horror! The unimaginable horror!
I just quoted this part so you would have have to read that crap.
I have no interest in providing any reason to promote copies merging back together. And keeping one somewhere safe is indeed an intended strategy. They'll still be fighting at a penalty for the extra safety.
Quoted for personal reference for when I recommend someone to abuse Astral Form in any of your games.
Someone piloting another's super robot with this would be able to make a clone of the original pilot of the super robot with this ability.
Didn't plan that detail but I'm keeping it.
Quoted for personal reference for when I recommend, oh well you don't pay attention anyway so it'll just have to be a surprise.
Ok, I'll bite, what's exactly so OP about half-naked pilots coming out?
WotC already does that and people like Oslecamo claim Spells/Powers are broken because they can create fully-naked clones and Class Features are better than Items.
Since when is being limited to a single weapon not a penalty?
I'm not sure if I should imply all [Heavy] weapons are a penalty by your definition or that I should just use a [Heavy] example in how splitting lets you fire them six times per 4HD instead of once but w/e. Mostly I can't help but think the mech could have zero weapons and a Super Pilot still wouldn't give a crap because one of Burning Justice's 1st level strikes gives them a new one that's better than they can "buy" anyway. Class Features are so much better than items.
Now if only there was a way to force height/width and display the text at the top of each cell using the forum tags.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on February 19, 2017, 06:44:54 AM
So, the party has decided to take the HEATS feat and become a combiner, and as a result, we've now got a mech with 33 DR. The super pilot is thinking of taking the Defend feat (reduce damage by half as an immediate action). We're now unsure if Defend applies before or after DR. I'm inclined to think after, but I want to get confirmation from you, Oslecamo.

After DR, clarified.

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Thing is smaller mechas already are already more precise by default.
+Great One and such removing size penalties
I see! In that case you'll want to maintain the proportion for the speed increases of Great Agility to match Great Plating and only raise the AC bonus to compensate for the AC penalty. Getting bigger doesn't make you slower. If the main idea is to cover the size penalties, however, I'd also recommend to have the ability simply remove the size penalty instead of getting a higher flat bonus. This is to avoid getting that benefit from multiple sources to get a net improvement.
If you already have an ability to waive the size penalties, for example, Great Targeting would effectively give an extra 8 Targeting for "free".
Coincidentally, I was actually planning on taking such an ability myself.
Good points, updated with reduced bonus while removing the relevant size penalties.

Something in the same vein that would fit well into the Zero ability tree would be an ability that makes a mecha count as being a size category bigger or smaller per 4/super pilot level without actually changing its space, like a mecha powerful build/slight build. The effective pilot level would decrease normally for each size category away from medium.
I'll consider it.

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You need to take in account sinergies. Increasing max HP/energy is a lot more valuable since several effects here recover percentages of those not to mention the spirits that outright fully recover HP/energy, whereas most spirit recovering effects are static and thus having a bigger max does not help you recover faster.
Well aware, though I was only comparing the cost/effectiveness in upgrade points for each pick. I'm taking for granted that when you decided how much each upgrade option would grant of their respective bonus you already took synergy potential into account to make them equal in value as an upgrade point pick. Mechanically the proportion of worth per pick should remain equivalent.
If I wanted that I would just write a massive pure point buy chart for everything.

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Zero Weapon demands you to use only one weapon, Zero State inflicts penalties whenever you use it.
Zero Weapon has no penalty. You can still use other weapons, you're just not getting rewarded for it. A penalty would be a disadvantage at all times.
Tek Soul halves your HP whether you use spirits or not. It doesn't care if you use what it gives you.
Zero State likewise doesn't penalize you while you're not using it.
I consider Zero Entropy to be fixed by the vulnerability and the bypasses.
Added half HP/spirit/energy recovery all the time for Zero State.

Zero Weapon still has two caveats:
-Overall the weakest Zero Pattern.
-One disarm check gone wrong and the upgrade check becomes useless, plus whatever you invested in Main Weapon.

So basically a lot of eggs in one very fragile basket. And they're not exactly the gold standard of eggs.

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Ok, I'll bite, what's exactly so OP about half-naked pilots coming out?
The point was that I don't have to keep listing things that may make it abusable or raise game mechanics questions because it'll take a while before we cover everything.
Not going anywhere.

Anyway increased numeric penalty per copy and removed all the extra options besides Zero Circuit, that has been split into Zero Core that reduces the penalties while Zero Circuit allows for the spam of lesser copies. So no longer need to worry about recovery shenigans.

Its potential is limited only by the imagination of whoever uses it and there is a lot just within your homebrew that would have pretty weird interactions with it.
I'm not saying it is hopeless. Certainly not. Just that the wish to make every copy real in every way entails a lot of ruling issues.
And sometimes quite important ones. For example, now that equipped gear is split between the copies but aren't lost when a copy is dismissed/destroyed, what happens to that gear? Does it fuse back between the remaining copies or does it drop down where the copy got dismissed/destroyed? Right now it seems to not fuse back and drop on spot. The questions keep coming to me even as I write this but I haven't the time to develop on them all.
Correct, gear drops on the position of a dismissed/destroyed clone.

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No, just that they still have the same agenda. Unless you're highjacking somebody else's super robot in which case good luck explaining them why you're highjacking their super robot.
If they are not under control, it leads to a perfectly logical end point; every pilot copy has its own sense of self and thus absolutely isn't interested in being the one to get dismissed/destroyed. They would each plot the destruction of the others so that they cannot be dismissed and then never use the ability again for fear of being destroyed in the process. Yes, of course, the entity they are representing would remain but speaking for the copy that will die forever, the notion isn't all that appealing. The remaining copies would still be you... but not really. Am I going too deep with this? I don't think so since this is a role playing game. A character using this effectively would require a pretty unusual way of thinking.
Do you even sci-fi? Many people out there consider that getting a clone to carry your will is as good as immortality.

Even outside of sci-fi you have things like Jojo's Bizarre Adventure Steelball Run where the big bad's main power is being able to summon his own versions from alternate realities and they willingly sacrifice themselves left, right and center for chasing their master plan.

So indeed, if the character picked the ability in the first place, it means they're willing to personally die/disappear for something greater.

Plus there's already a feat chain around self-destructing in case you forgot.

As for hijacking another pilot's mecha to make copies of that main pilot, that may have been part of the plan all along. You leave an ally behind with your mecha when you have to go places on foot and if there's trouble you can have that ally copy you and then dismiss the one who is in trouble.
Utility!

If you're an enemy of that mecha's pilot, you can prepare the terrain to make it impossible for that copy to survive.
When you are ready to fight the original, have your ally make copies that gets insta-destroyed to split the original's resources again and again. The mecha would could be split while already at very low HP.
Aka "don't let your enemy hijack your mecha if you want to win".

If that enemy pilot had a great mecha weapon through one of his class abilities, you can then take it for yourself through the Gamble spirit. Take a feat through Gain as well. Those last two can be done with a prisoner in a myriad of ways anyway but that's another one.
Eeerrr, there's already a clause that you can never gain benefits from destroying a copy.

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Absolute Barrier
Very good though there are some things that are odd or feels incomplete.
-It stops working if the mecha has 10 energy left or less. Why not 14 or lower when the cost is 15?
-"You cannot pick an ability that you chose as your Absolute Barrier's vulnerability." What is that supposed to refer to? The only vulnerability are beams/missile weapons and those aren't in the list of extra thing the barrier makes you impervious to.
-"If a weapon has both your vulnerability and immunity,  [...]" That sentence is incomplete and has no meaning.
-Typo.
-My original plan was to allow the vulnerability to be either missile, beam, or a mecha weapon property. What people seem to miss is that neither missile or beam are weapon properties since they don't do anything by themselves. That's Power/Rending/Pinning/etc. But in retrospective maybe it's best to leave the chooseable vulnerabilities at missile or beam.
-Another typo, clarified that if you're hit by your chosen vulnerability it also ignores your chosen immunity.

Thanks for taking care of those so quickly!
You're welcome.

On the support staff class (super pilot version), how does it multiclass with other classes that count as Super Pilot?
Does it get half upgrades only from the Support Staff levels or does it affect those of the Arcane Pilot / Super Pilot as well? My reading is that it affects them all.
Will see about a clearer wording when I return to work on that.

Also, are the spirits (Revival) and (Huge Encouragement) indeed meant to be Super Pilot or should they have been Ship Captain? Same for the Real's Aid. Spirits that affect other mechas are typically ship captain stuff. Just making sure.
Spreading around the utility a bit. Another example is Soul being Real Pilot while Valor is Super Pilot.

SorO: In no particular order.
(click to show/hide)
-Astral Form reduces most of your resources to less than half since when?
-The horror!
-Tell me, what's best in D&D 3.5 for a big challenge? One guy with a +20 bonus or fifteen guys with a +2 bonus each? You don't get to add the minor guys bonus together just like that. That's why Point Buy makes you pay more for a single big bonus than multiple small ones.
-Oh noes, casters don't dominate everything for once! The horror!
-Heavy weapon spam with zero circuit is cute, but a)you're limited to melee weapons b)no spirits means no assault so you can only attack stuff that's adjacent c)The cheapest [Heavy] arsenal melee weapon is the barbed mace that costs 30 energy per swing meaning you need 180 energy to get six clones swinging and d)You can't use maneuvers since they're neither basic attacks, basic movement or basic skills besides UMD. So at 4th level you don't have enough energy for that (only 100 base plus 30 battery). And it only gets worst at higher levels since at 20 clones would need a whooping 600 energy. A full set of battery upgrade and an Hyper Generator doesn't even get you half of that. And that would still be with the I Barbed Mace, instead of, say, Plasma Greatsword at 50 energy per swing aka 1000 energy total.
-The unimaginable horror!
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on February 20, 2017, 02:13:50 AM
Looking at the Absolute Barrier, would the 80% damage reduction be too much? Even Gravity Wall goes up to half and that was one of the hallmarks of the real pilots who got access to it before everything else. Not saying there is no way around it, just that it does it better much than Reals. They have access to G Territory for 50% damage prevention when Supers get 60% at 12 and almost as good at 8, then make it even more obvious that they are superior by ignoring all their barrier options as they get access to them (xcept the ships, for a while), so they have no way to remain one step ahead if they invest in their barrier options. Maybe it should cap at 50% and then get better, such as a lower energy cost per attack considering (since at the lower levels you got more energy than you know what to do with anyway so it mostly penalizes supers for multiclassing later) to a minimum of 15 EN per attack. Then Apply DR after instead of before. Could scale better and there are still the immunities that make it worth maxing. Just negating everything else's energy barriers could well make it worth the points.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on February 21, 2017, 05:16:33 AM
Made each pick cost a full 4 points to make it less dippable, also increased energy cost.

Fixed the after DR typo, thanks a lot for pointing that one out.

And yes, the plan is for supers to end with superior barriers, since usually they're more of a super's staple than reals. Cough evangelion cough.

Do notice the barrier ignoring only works in melee though. I'll also see about adding some other Arsenal barriers and anti-barrier stuff accross all levels.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on February 21, 2017, 11:46:02 PM
Oslecamo, what with the impending drama of either board shutdown or movement, do you think it would be alright for my group to make a wiki for this project? If the board keeps going, it doesn't hurt anything, but if the board ends, then you've got a place where it's backed up online still. I'd be happy to maintain the wiki as you changed things. If you're unwilling to have your work on a wiki, that's fine, but I'd like to know if you're OK with it sooner rather than later.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on February 22, 2017, 12:00:11 AM
A wiki sounds painful due to all the formatting involved but hey I'd love to edit his homebrew for him :p

Why not just do it as a web page or something? You can pretty much just smack "quote", run a few tag replacements, and throw it all into notepad, and then use a free host or just post the link to the file. Heck you can even get fancy and create a header for all the pages so you can access each one you want without having to dig through things. And instead of hyperlinking "Power" once like a wiki does, the same replacement command can be used to add a full description text display on mouseover so you don't even have to leave the page, lose your spot, or anything.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on February 22, 2017, 12:02:38 AM
I'm completely fine with a wiki as long as the original authors are properly recognized. :)
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on February 22, 2017, 12:20:10 AM
Ahh but I'd love mouseover text :(

Srsly, right click and open new tab on this (https://www.w3schools.com/html/tryit.asp?filename=tryhtml_default) and paste the following into the left box and hit run.
Code: [Select]
<!DOCTYPE html><html><head></head><body>
Plasma Sword (I), melee, +3, 1d12(S), -, 5, 19-20x2, 8, (<i><a title="Ignores 1/2 natural, armor, and shield bonuses to AC">Power</a></i>, <i><a title="Uses your dex to attack rolls">Finesse</a></i>)
</body></html>
Then mouse over the italic text on the right, you can pretty much use w/e you want to identify it as displaying things on mouseover such as coloring it blue or something. You can paste all kinds of quick reminders for such complicated homebrew trivializing the learning curve without altering the presentation or forcing people to flip back and forth through multiple pages.

*flexes fingers*
(click to show/hide)
Try doing the same with that and click on the I/II/III/IV. Obviously I didn't actually convert the tables but theoretically you can shrink the entire Arsenal down to about a dozen lines in a box that you could literately shove to the right hand side of the screen. Why even bother with separate tab for Real/Super Robots or their Upgrades/ & Arsenal when you can display them together?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on February 22, 2017, 02:41:41 AM
Ahh but I'd love mouseover text :(

Srsly, right click and open new tab on this (https://www.w3schools.com/html/tryit.asp?filename=tryhtml_default) and paste the following into the left box and hit run.
Code: [Select]
<!DOCTYPE html><html><head></head><body>
Plasma Sword (I), melee, +3, 1d12(S), -, 5, 19-20x2, 8, (<i><a title="Ignores 1/2 natural, armor, and shield bonuses to AC">Power</a></i>, <i><a title="Uses your dex to attack rolls">Finesse</a></i>)
</body></html>
Then mouse over the italic text on the right, you can pretty much use w/e you want to identify it as displaying things on mouseover such as coloring it blue or something. You can paste all kinds of quick reminders for such complicated homebrew trivializing the learning curve without altering the presentation or forcing people to flip back and forth through multiple pages.

*flexes fingers*
(click to show/hide)
Try doing the same with that and click on the I/II/III/IV. Obviously I didn't actually convert the tables but theoretically you can shrink the entire Arsenal down to about a dozen lines in a box that you could literately shove to the right hand side of the screen. Why even bother with separate tab for Real/Super Robots or their Upgrades/ & Arsenal when you can display them together?

Ah, but this can be done in wikia as well!

First page is done, here (http://srwd20.wikia.com/wiki/Races).

There's mouseover on weapon properties, which is a template that can be applied anywhere and will be the same everywhere.

It'll be a bit to get all the pages ready, but we'll get it done!
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on February 22, 2017, 07:30:39 AM
Neat!

About the Android's integrated weapon. To be sure this is read correctly. Is the regular one channeled through the mecha with the higher versions not being channeled when you take that option or are they all not channeling through the mecha?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on February 22, 2017, 07:50:29 AM
First page is done, here (http://srwd20.wikia.com/wiki/Races).

There's mouseover on weapon properties, which is a template that can be applied anywhere and will be the same everywhere.

It'll be a bit to get all the pages ready, but we'll get it done!

Great job start!  :clap

Neat!

About the Android's integrated weapon. To be sure this is read correctly. Is the regular one channeled through the mecha with the higher versions not being channeled when you take that option or are they all not channeling through the mecha?

The weapon can never integrated into the weapon, regardless of which one you choose.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on February 22, 2017, 10:36:04 AM
Ah, but this can be done in wikia as well!
Friggin sweet. :D
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on February 25, 2017, 04:18:56 PM
Quote
A multiclass Ship Captain/Super Pilot applies Super Robot upgrades to the battleship. Count only Super Pilot levels for determining which upgrades are available. The battleship automatically gains the "Transform" mecha property for free, allowing it to turn into a massive humanoid of the battleship's size as a swift action. In humanoid form, its natural armor is reduced by 2, its battleship flight speed is traded for the 30 mu base speed of a Super Robot, and it gains the two in-built melee weapons a base Super Robot would obtain. In this form, the Battleship can perform trips and grapples, but becomes vulnerable to them as well. If either the growth or miniaturization upgrades are taken, the character can choose for one of its transformed forms to have one of its previous sizes.
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Size: huge by default. A captain may choose to start with a bigger battleship up to colossal size, but this won't grant any mechanical benefit besides [...]
Something that bugs me a bit with this is that a Ship Captain 1/Super Pilot 1 instantly gets a huge humanoid mecha at second level, which is normally only accessible at super pilot level 8. The humanoid mecha would be huge by default.
Ship Captain 1/Super Pilot 8 would be colossal. No sure giving such an early access to bigger mechas is a good idea. The ship being huge from the get go is sort of okay since its ship mecha weapons have their own damage progression anyway and none of them are melee.

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Machinery Warrior ;You Cannot Stop Me: At 3rd level 1/hour when the Machinery Warrior is mecha is dropped below half HP, he may use a Spirit he knows as a free action.
How does this work, exactly? It seems to be meant to allow the use of a spirit outside of turn, but a free action can only be done during one's own turn. The spirit seems meant to take effect after the damage is received rather than before, as well.

Quote
Machinery Weapons: At first level pick two weapons from the Mecha chosen for Machine Cells. The Machinery Warrior gains an enanchment bonus on attack and damage rolls with those two weapons equal to his Machinery Warrior level, up to +10.
Your games usually go with the rule that enhancement bonuses to weapons are accompanied by special weapon abilities of an equal enhancement bonus value, but I do not think it is meant to apply this time.

Absolute Barrier: Good nerfs. I read it again I can tell you right now that the chosen vulnerability will almost always be missiles. If only because there aren't all that many arsenal missile weapons and that most options are on real robots built-ins and I think all of them are ranged, unlike the beam weapons. Might as well make it vulnerable to both since missile weapons are so limited anyway.
Also, were the arsenal options meant to have (melee?) anti-barriers? The function could also be added to another accessory, such as the +X insight to attacks accessories or as a radar option.

Photon Radar(V)
Its first two options still inflict penalties.

Quote
Lightwave Barrier (II)-Weapons without missile on their names or without deal only half [...]
Maybe the missing part is meant to be "Beam in their name". In which case it could be "All weapons except beam or missile weapons deal only half..."
Also, there is already Beam Coat at that arsenal level, in case you meant there to be only one barrier option per arsenal level.


Quote
Do you even sci-fi? Many people out there consider that getting a clone to carry your will is as good as immortality.
Cloning Gambit (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CloningGambit) Expendable Clone (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ExpendableClone)
Aye, kind of in the same way people can think that doing an amazing deed will make them immortal by being remembered forever... which is pretty darn silly. Your name/deed/work may last for quite a while (all things come to an ultimate end in time anyway) but their own lives certainly do not last any longer. And when you're dead you no longer care. Usually this is mostly done in the way you leave a child behind to carry on your legacy, though with extra vanity as the child is exactly like you. Or more effectively by having their own mind transferred to the clone, getting rid of the clone's own sense of Self. Otherwise you indeed just die and someone else that is like you, but not you, goes on. Since all clones aren't mind-linked in some way that does not apply, however.
If you send a clone to adventure somewhere, the XP it gains are technically not shared with the one hidden at the base (I suppose since each clone have the same XP upon creation they can also leave a clone to spend XP on spells/item crafting, then be dismissed so that it doesn't affect the XP of the one to become the original. Might want to prevent that kind of stuff). Whatever it learns is not learned by the one hiding away unless they have a way to communicate. If the clone dies, the new original will know since his stats increase but would have to recover the copy's mecha's blackbox to check what happened. Assuming the wreck of the mecha copy does not disappear as well and so leave no blackbox, which is likely the case. Otherwise you can also dismiss their corpse/mecha wreckage, I suppose, unless destroyed/kill copies are instantly treated as dismissed. That isn't clear.
Great job limiting the abuse of the ability so far. It still has incredible potential through the multiplication of class abilities but its power has to lie somewhere.

Sentient Support: The supporting still has the robot spend an immediate action to provide bonuses to the one currently piloting the robot... but he cannot spend actions while being piloted since it only gets actions while the pilot is out of it, which means that upgrade needs tricks to apply, such as piloting the robot while outside of like through Innovade.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on February 27, 2017, 12:48:10 PM
Absolute Barrier: God nerfs. I read it again I can tell you right now that the chosen vulnerability will almost always be missiles. If only because there aren't all that many arsenal missile weapons and that most options are on real robots built-ins and I think all of them are ranged, unlike the beam weapons.
Yeah but for 1 Hard Point / Hyperdimensional Storage you can just pick up Beam Coat which isn't some kind of "wall". Then end outcome can be your defense arrays prevents 20% damage at the cost of energy but is weak against beams because only it prevents 50% damage for free.

It also has a problem of being worse than a Wizard vs Sorcerer debate. At a few key levels, since you always generate energy at the start of your turn, you always ignore your opponent's barrier. In reverse, say the BBEG is one level higher, it becomes a nearly unwinnable fight as you have you deal with his reduction and he ignores yours unless you expressly use one of the many nova options I've talked about for glass cannon nuking because fights should be over in 1/10 someone's turn I guess.

It's Free Action immunity is also is massively abusive. I'd call out Fireball but I'm sick of the totally fucking retarded bullshit comments that go with it, so pick any area effect that doesn't use an attack roll in any of his poorly written grotesquely more powerful than WotC's homebrew for example and use that instead. It's not an attack and so it doesn't cost energy and if it falls into one of the things it's basically ignored for free. It doesn't even scale with his Alien Alloy Upgrade. Spend one point for Resist 10 in one element that can never be changed vs the Barrier's "tertiary effect of another upgrade gives 100% protection with a free action to change to any element, and more, as you like."

Zero State is getting better. Nope, still can't say that with a straight face but I tried. Zero State is punishing casters even more now but feel free to invent yet another broken Arsenal attack option. Like Linked Anti-Ship Swords for 3,925/rnd @lv12/30Str, it's so much damage you should just look into switching a bunch of them out to debuff the crap out of your opponent first using grenades & keywords like Pinning & Concussive. And Martial Adepts, err correction WotC's Martial Adepts are screwed in the rear but not Osl's Classes, Real/Super Pilots can still simply reenter their Stances and since they bypass Ready they can still use their Maneuvers when they don't use Circuit. Given Soul Melders and Binders are not limited in anyway either there is certainly some nich optimization in there for them too.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on February 28, 2017, 07:43:03 AM
Scientist Support path mostly done, just need the super weapons.

Quote
A multiclass Ship Captain/Super Pilot applies Super Robot upgrades to the battleship. Count only Super Pilot levels for determining which upgrades are available. The battleship automatically gains the "Transform" mecha property for free, allowing it to turn into a massive humanoid of the battleship's size as a swift action. In humanoid form, its natural armor is reduced by 2, its battleship flight speed is traded for the 30 mu base speed of a Super Robot, and it gains the two in-built melee weapons a base Super Robot would obtain. In this form, the Battleship can perform trips and grapples, but becomes vulnerable to them as well. If either the growth or miniaturization upgrades are taken, the character can choose for one of its transformed forms to have one of its previous sizes.
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Size: huge by default. A captain may choose to start with a bigger battleship up to colossal size, but this won't grant any mechanical benefit besides [...]
Something that bugs me a bit with this is that a Ship Captain 1/Super Pilot 1 instantly gets a huge humanoid mecha at second level, which is normally only accessible at super pilot level 8. The humanoid mecha would be huge by default.
Ship Captain 1/Super Pilot 8 would be colossal. No sure giving such an early access to bigger mechas is a good idea. The ship being huge from the get go is sort of okay since its ship mecha weapons have their own damage progression anyway and none of them are melee.
Something that you seem to be missing is that a battleship has the Cubersome penalty that leaves you flat-footed against adjacent opponents and they also automatically threaten crits against it. And so does a multiclass Ship Captain/Super Robot. Yes, it can get bigger size faster, but remains highly vulnerable to high crit weapons when they get close and personal.

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Machinery Warrior ;You Cannot Stop Me: At 3rd level 1/hour when the Machinery Warrior is mecha is dropped below half HP, he may use a Spirit he knows as a free action.
How does this work, exactly? It seems to be meant to allow the use of a spirit outside of turn, but a free action can only be done during one's own turn. The spirit seems meant to take effect after the damage is received rather than before, as well.
Added clause that it can use outside of turn. However the spirit's effect happening after the damage is resolved is intended.

No, I'll never forget Alpha Gaiden's "take me down in one shot or I'll Guts and Wall and Strike" bosses.

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Machinery Weapons: At first level pick two weapons from the Mecha chosen for Machine Cells. The Machinery Warrior gains an enanchment bonus on attack and damage rolls with those two weapons equal to his Machinery Warrior level, up to +10.
Your games usually go with the rule that enhancement bonuses to weapons are accompanied by special weapon abilities of an equal enhancement bonus value, but I do not think it is meant to apply this time.
No, and that's why it isn't mentioned. Just raw numeric bonuses.


Absolute Barrier: Good nerfs. I read it again I can tell you right now that the chosen vulnerability will almost always be missiles. If only because there aren't all that many arsenal missile weapons and that most options are on real robots built-ins and I think all of them are ranged, unlike the beam weapons.  Might as well make it vulnerable to both since missile weapons are so limited anyway.
Added a couple of missile options to every Arsenal tier. Deal a bit more base damage than even the volatile weapons, but low ammo, take high space, and none have the power or rending properties.

Later gonna add bio-missiles to the Einst Queen, already added bio-beams.

Also, were the arsenal options meant to have (melee?) anti-barriers? The function could also be added to another accessory, such as the +X insight to attacks accessories or as a radar option.
Ah, what the heck, just added a level I acessory for it. Yes, it'll work on even a fullpower Absolute Barrier, but it's still taking an Arsenal slot.

Photon Radar(V)
Its first two options still inflict penalties.
Fixed.

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Lightwave Barrier (II)-Weapons without missile on their names or without deal only half [...]
Maybe the missing part is meant to be "Beam in their name". In which case it could be "All weapons except beam or missile weapons deal only half..."
Yes, beam is missing, no it cannot be a text that spawns discussinons about "machine guns are missile weapons! Swords too because they can be thrown! And spells! And breaths! Everything is a missile weapon, it's just a matter of perspective!"

Also, there is already Beam Coat at that arsenal level, in case you meant there to be only one barrier option per arsenal level.
That was the original plan, but since I already wrote Lightwaver barrier, meh.

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Do you even sci-fi? Many people out there consider that getting a clone to carry your will is as good as immortality.
Cloning Gambit (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CloningGambit) Expendable Clone (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ExpendableClone)
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Since all clones aren't mind-linked in some way that does not apply, however. If you send a clone to adventure somewhere, the XP it gains are technically not shared with the one hidden at the base (I suppose since each clone have the same XP upon creation they can also leave a clone to spend XP on spells/item crafting, then be dismissed so that it doesn't affect the XP of the one to become the original. Might want to prevent that kind of stuff). Whatever it learns is not learned by the one hiding away unless they have a way to communicate. If the clone dies, the new original will know since his stats increase but would have to recover the copy's mecha's blackbox to check what happened. Assuming the wreck of the mecha copy does not disappear as well and so leave no blackbox, which is likely the case. Otherwise you can also dismiss their corpse/mecha wreckage, I suppose, unless destroyed/kill copies are instantly treated as dismissed. That isn't clear.
Good points. Added anti-exp spending clause, clarified dismissal in the case of death/destruction, clarified exp earning.



Sentient Support: The supporting still has the robot spend an immediate action to provide bonuses to the one currently piloting the robot... but he cannot spend actions while being piloted since it only gets actions while the pilot is out of it, which means that upgrade needs tricks to apply, such as piloting the robot while outside of like through Innovade.

Yeah, Supporting is more trouble than it's worth honestly, removed it.

Absolute Barrier: God nerfs. I read it again I can tell you right now that the chosen vulnerability will almost always be missiles. If only because there aren't all that many arsenal missile weapons and that most options are on real robots built-ins and I think all of them are ranged, unlike the beam weapons.
Yeah but for 1 Hard Point / Hyperdimensional Storage you can just pick up Beam Coat which isn't some kind of "wall". Then end outcome can be your defense arrays prevents 20% damage at the cost of energy but is weak against beams because only it prevents 50% damage for free.
Beam coat also costs energy, taking Hyperdimensional Storage means you're not taking Mysterious Power, and Absolute Barrier's anti-stacking does mention "and similar abilities". Which Beam Coat is pretty much the definition, particularly since it was the first stated up for this project. But since that wasn't enough for you to notice, added explicitly coat to the anti-stacking clause. The horror!

It also has a problem of being worse than a Wizard vs Sorcerer debate. At a few key levels, since you always generate energy at the start of your turn, you always ignore your opponent's barrier. In reverse, say the BBEG is one level higher, it becomes a nearly unwinnable fight as you have you deal with his reduction and he ignores yours unless you expressly use one of the many nova options I've talked about for glass cannon nuking because fights should be over in 1/10 someone's turn I guess.
BBEG's barrier being better than yours only happens at exactly levels 3, 7, 11 and 15, anywhere else an extra level won't buy you a superior Absolute Barrier. And energy-draining special weapons have existed forever for a reason, besides the new fresh Arsenal option. The unimagineable horror!

It's Free Action immunity is also is massively abusive. I'd call out Fireball but I'm sick of the totally fucking retarded bullshit comments that go with it, so pick any area effect that doesn't use an attack roll in any of his poorly written grotesquely more powerful than WotC's homebrew for example and use that instead. It's not an attack and so it doesn't cost energy and if it falls into one of the things it's basically ignored for free. It doesn't even scale with his Alien Alloy Upgrade. Spend one point for Resist 10 in one element that can never be changed vs the Barrier's "tertiary effect of another upgrade gives 100% protection with a free action to change to any element, and more, as you like."
Invisibility text disagress with you for what counts as an attack. So does Sanctuary since it specifically calls area attacks as bypassing it, which would be completely pointless if area effects didn't count as attacks. The horror unimabineable!

Zero State is getting better. Nope, still can't say that with a straight face but I tried. Zero State is punishing casters even more now but feel free to invent yet another broken Arsenal attack option. Like Linked Anti-Ship Swords for 3,925/rnd @lv12/30Str, it's so much damage you should just look into switching a bunch of them out to debuff the crap out of your opponent first using grenades & keywords like Pinning & Concussive. And Martial Adepts, err correction WotC's Martial Adepts are screwed in the rear but not Osl's Classes, Real/Super Pilots can still simply reenter their Stances and since they bypass Ready they can still use their Maneuvers when they don't use Circuit. Given Soul Melders and Binders are not limited in anyway either there is certainly some nich optimization in there for them too.
Essentia is a limited resource, and entering SRWd20 stances costs energy. You got me on Binders (why not truenamer spam since we're at it?), but you still have to explain how exactly you're pulling 1000+ energy for all the clones to swing. Heck even two clones stabbing with linked Anti-Ship Swords will cost 140 energy by themselves, which is doable but also already stretching the limit of what a level 12 super robot can do. Adding a third clone swinging will only work with Tek Reactor and drain all of your energy. Or it would, but you have no energy left for actually entering Brave Stance for linking the Anti-Ship Swords. Horror the!
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on February 28, 2017, 11:19:01 AM
Yeah, Supporting is more trouble than it's worth honestly, removed it.
You should revise Sentient anyway. You clearly want to keep treating the mech as an Object, in order to correctly do this you should word it that the mech gains an AI that has your Wis/Cha score, Feats, Skills, etc and pilots the mech for you using specially installed motors and servos that give the mech an effective Str/Dex score. And shouldn't even gain a Constitution Score in the first place seeing how it's a Construct.

This allows the AI to be the Creature part of the machine, piloting it as per standard, instead of the Mech it's self becoming a Creature.

Yes, beam is missing, no it cannot be a text that spawns discussinons about "machine guns are missile weapons! Swords too because they can be thrown! And spells! And breaths! Everything is a missile weapon, it's just a matter of perspective!"
Just clearly tag what things are instead of leaving things totally ambiguous.

Sort of like "other energy walls/barriers/fields" doesn't include coats of paint. Which all the other energy walls/barriers/fields/coats will need to be updated like Absolute Barrier. A little wording revision to call them force fields or something in each would paint a clearer picture and then instead of rattling off what you consider to be synonyms you could just say they don't stack with other force fields.

BBEG's barrier being better than yours only happens at exactly levels 3, 7, 11 and 15, anywhere else an extra level won't buy you a superior Absolute Barrier. And energy-draining special weapons have existed forever for a reason, besides the new fresh Arsenal option. I'm a large child!
Energy draining techniques like 25 clones or firing twelve weapons at once, or any other broken glass cannon trick as I previously mentioned, works too. See also the snarky comment that combat is supposed to last 1/10th someone's turn.

But you're wasting actions trying to drain their energy when if they are using one they probably have energy upgrades. And seeing how my entire point was based on the secondary ability of the field to ignore all other energy walls/barriers/fields/coats/covers/blankets/ceilings it really doesn't matter if you drain it since they always have energy at the start of their turn. Worse, since the text really isn't clear you may end up ruling each time a superior field using mech attacks a lesser they still expend energy per hit even through it prevents zero damage which is seriously detrimental because they are going to need to burn a lot of energy to try and hurt the other guy.

Invisibility text disagress with the PHB, DMG, MM, and RC's glossary/entries on what is or isn't an attack. So does Sanctuary since it specifically calls area attacks as bypassing it, which would be completely pointless if area effects didn't count as attacks. Hold on while I suck my thumb!
Maybe try using the term harmful or describing what you mean or even cross-indexing Invisibility.

Essentia is a limited resource
A limited resource yes, but it's not a resource that's expended or recovered. Think of it like you have five glowing orbs of infinite energy, you can set them on consoles to power them and pick them up when you want, sometimes a console is picky and can only let you put things on it once per day, but how you move the orbs around is entirely up to you. Shaping Soul Melds is limited with a per day cap like Spells, but they remained Shaped indefinitely.

but you still have to explain how exactly you're pulling 1000+ energy for all the clones to swing. Heck even two clones stabbing with linked Anti-Ship Swords will cost 140 energy by themselves,
Change the example to any Heavy weapon that doesn't use Energy then. Since 98% of your weapons don't use Energy in the first place it's not a column I care to check.

Like the FXA-03M2 Hyper Mega Launcher & Demolition Chain Missile are both lv3s, both deal even more damage, and they both use zero energy for example. Fail to rebuttal much? The Launcher can even be fired four times for each one you equip too. So really the biggest problem is Arsenal Points, but as already brought up there is so much damage you should just take the time to chunk one of every Grenade you can buy first anyway and maybe pick up some 60mm Gatling Cannons to trigger several stacks of Pinning so they can't move.

And seriously, we could be at this all year. Even if you ban Heavy Weapons I'll just use normal ones. Even if you ban all Arsenal I'll just move to Amplified Breath Weapons, Reserve Feats, Ritual of Dark Fire, or even a freaking Monk. And if you ban those well I'm sure I'll find something. Rather than listing the exceptions that should be banned, you should just revise the ability. There are ways to do clones, I think a few posts ago I even listed a half-dozen ways WotC did it, and they all are less powerful than your option and they somehow manged to do it without the self contradiction of trying to offer immortality but preventing healing.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on March 01, 2017, 12:39:16 AM
Comments that basically amount to the same old clear typing & it's overpowered side, what's your stance on people adding homebrew to your homebrew? I just watched Heart Hybrid (I feel like I'm admitting to watching porn here) over the last two days and finished it up this evening. Complaints about the show aside I like the idea. Sooo....


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*blows on his fingers* They need to cool off some.

Needs finished, proof reading, maybe some expansion text on a few upgrades for clarity, Mecha-Size mentions, and probably some number crunching since I only eyeballed the additions to make them a little more relevant in a SWR campaign. Not 100% sure what I'll do with with weapon empowerment other than those silly values like burst firing, Zero State, and Twin/Linked won't be an option. But maybe it'll only need Str/Dex to damage since it starts out fairly high (like 10d6, but of course it caps at 10d12 which is like lv3 heavy arsenal or lv6ish volatile).
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on March 01, 2017, 12:48:13 AM
I figured you the kind to prefer to admitting to watching porn than mahou shoujo  :P

But hot damn that's an impressive amount of work in probably a rather short amount of time. You even littered it with pics!

Edit: I read through it and my first impression is that this is pretty powerful. But in the sense of like a non-gestalt standing up against a gestalt in terms of all of Os' SRW stuff is fully intended and meant for gestalt games whereas this can be managed with a lot less of the shortcomings the SRW classes have when played in a non-gestalt game. But while also keeping relatively powerful in comparison to a gestalt SRW game.


Or something, I dunno -_-'
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on March 01, 2017, 01:24:49 AM
It seems pretty cool, but I'm slightly confused as to how the upgrades are intended to work in an SRW campaign, the size ones in particular. Is it intended that you can have vastly more HP than anything else in an SRW campaign?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on March 01, 2017, 01:30:00 AM
True, while most of it looks nice, those size upgrades are pretty dang crazy.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on March 01, 2017, 01:56:23 AM
But hot damn that's an impressive amount of work in probably a rather short amount of time. You even littered it with pics!
Most of the ideas are preconceived through. I always wanted a "transforming" class and Burlow's Avatar was just too weak. The idea of using PL's for Aersenal levels came up months ago when I finally started commenting in here and I already did an extensive amount of table work buried in one of my discussion threads for Modern's mechs. Most of the pictures came from just kicking out screen shots while I rewatched parts of it too with just a tiny bit of work to resize them down to about 12.5%. The two top ones through came from google images and required some mousework through. Their shrunk down so you won't notice the crappy job of cutting the background out :p

To be honest I wasted a vast majority of the time trying to get the damn spell table to line up right. I have a couple blanks I can just paste in but since it copies the Mystic Ranger's progression I had to add the Spells by hand. Except I started it two levels late, it's jump from 4th to 5th irritated me, then I was like it needs 6ths, then I like let's just take it to 9ths for SWR games and I'll cut the Slots/Known down to 2 later to force a more limited range of Spells. And as you can tell, I still didn't go back and bump them back down through.

Edit: I read through it and my first impression is that this is pretty powerful.
It's pretty much stuck at that as the inherent flaw of being mech related.

Buuuut... Remember it loses Pilot Feats (no +60 dr for devotion), it also loses 9th~7th spell access bumping it's casting down to Bardic levels, and doesn't obtain any Spirits in a none-SWR campaign. If you're running pure Modern a couple good rolls can give you a Large Mecha to run around in without even consuming Class Levels depending on how much you focus on your Wealth Bonus so you can easily "gestalt" if the DM allows D&D classes in Modern. The delayed progression and none-stacking elements actually makes it weaker than a more advanced Modern game would run so it's pretty hit or miss depending on how rare the DM wants to make advanced mechs. Over on the D&D side I did note using it as a PrC which delays it quite a bit. Giving +4 Str & +50hp by your 6th level really isn't too bad. It's difficulty point is Modern's weapons are exceedingly deadly. Like 1st level characters with a Glock can Double Tap for 3d6 damage and mecha Rocket Launchers deal 10d6 damage. That's kind of where I hit the rut at, a pure D&D usage is an element of consideration for me and it'll probably need some scaling applied to it. I actually ran into this problem but when I first tried Parody Rangers which is why their weapons are even higher than Moderns (also the game is initially designed to kill you in horrendously ackward ways).

It seems pretty cool, but I'm slightly confused as to how the upgrades are intended to work in an SRW campaign, the size ones in particular. Is it intended that you can have vastly more HP than anything else in an SRW campaign?
Technically yes? It's Modern's HP scale, the Colossal variants even go up to 1,000hp. But even so, I don't plan on changing it.

While the DR is pretty comparable, even with the SWR buff applied, a Super Robot can use Great & Arsenal to produce a higher value. Likewise the only percentile reduction offer is meant to prevent Full-Attacks, comparatively Osl has just spammed a dozen force fields for SWR. It's really not even difficult to land 50% or greater damage reduction against the first couple of attacks received each turn. So ideally in SWR vs Magitech, the Magitech has more HP to soak up damage while the SWR simply takes less damage. Since I don't plan on inventing any dafaq attack sequences they may actually need some kind of added benefit like how Close Canceller works, through I hate binary based crap. It'll probably be hit or miss solely depending on how I work out damage scaling and for that I need some time to think about it.

True, while most of it looks nice, those size upgrades are pretty dang crazy.
That's actually per Modern & standard Size Improvement too.  :P

It also helps Modern's mecha melee values fall pretty short. Like PL8 melee only deals 16d6 per hit, and that's including a Colossal Size Modifier that 3rd doesn't even bother with and Modern doesn't apply to ranged weapons, including the modifier that's 72 damage. A PL5 Rocket Launcher deals 15d6 or 52 or 72% of that figure. Hell the V-14 Antimatter Cannon hits for 10d12, splashes for 6d12, and arguably you can apply Future Tech's modifications to it. +10 dice for -10 to attack rolls, that's +6.5 dmg per -1 to attack, and I have no idea how that is supposed to interact with splash effects. Did I mention Future Tech is a horrible book?
Change Log
01-24-17, added one of the official methods of exchanging purchase dcs to gold values and it's the mecha/D&D specific one.
01-**-17, some of the customization options have been listed such as mech slots & armor.
01-19-17, Future Tech is a very poorly written book missing tables and expected information.
01-15-17, Future's equipment listed.
Yes, yes I did...

Coolest part? I did most of this while on the clock. It was a zero call day for me :D
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on March 01, 2017, 02:20:22 AM
Oh, well there's my problem. I do not know D20 Modern rules in any regards haha
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on March 01, 2017, 02:30:30 AM
Oh, well there's my problem. I do not know D20 Modern rules in any regards haha
You can cheat & peek at the tabled information here (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=2049.msg319442#msg319442).

Even using WotC's official articles a Large Mecha with no equipment officially costs costs 32,500gp, this is a direct book conversion too using Modern's Purchase DC to Cash & Arcana's gp:cash ratios. So you could even go Huge for +200hp & +16 Str for 100,000gp, with PL8 on the table it even reduces damage from attacks by 30, and it only costs 325gp to give it a LT-5 Longshot Mass Driver (15d6 per hit) to shoot people with. Obviously it needs hit with a nerf bat if the DM isn't throwing mechs at you. :p

Overall there is a lot of small problems that pop up when you try to merge the systems. Like Arcana is designed to let you port in the entire DMG's MiC's Magic Items into Modern. Can you imagine Splitting on this stuff? In reverse you get stuff like my joke in the Fun Finds thread about using Call Weaponry to summon antimatter weapons.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on March 01, 2017, 03:04:29 AM
Can someone with Zero State and the Heats feat combine the mecha-copies into a uber mecha? That's kind of funny. They technically all took Heats together at the same time. Ideally you choose an allied main pilot that isn't one of the split copies so the uber mecha can still get full resource recovery and benefits from a big boost to its super upgrades.
I'd like to do that. Anyone wanna do this?

Support Scientist Staff
Materials: Are those supposed to be a daily/weekly/other thing? So far it seems you roll the mining production once and that's it. That's what you have to work with until you make another factory mining base on which you get the roll you're looking for.
Although it may feel interesting I find that it makes it more interesting now as a cohort/follower since you wouldn't want to play a character whose class features are fixed on giving a passive that doesn't need them for the rest of the day so they can just chill home until maintenance time. And most require the base to really be useful, which begins at level 4.
They can work without materials, but then those buffed suck more for the rest of the day or even for the rest of the fight, which makes it a shitty buffer. If you go for the anti-buffing standard action uses you spend half the day working and then there's nothing really interesting to do during the fights.

Convert Data- Mandatory. It gives you something to do in fights. It is also in feet instead of mecha scale. And there is no terrible effect after using it, which is always a nice way for things to be when you're trying to support your teammates.
Prototype Weaponry- Probably too strong for the permanent option. I don't see why one would want to invest more than one pick in this and not just take it for the perma. Maybe the standard action version should just be a less interesting weapon that doesn't last long or would have a very limited amount of ammo to it determined by the number of picks.
It another Support Staff Mechanic with Fix It is around, though, you can make plenty of super weapons for everyone.
Experimental Module- I'd say it is almost the same as proto-weaponry, but it is a trap. Even though it sounds OP when permanent, you make your entire mecha volatile while its lasts, which is makes it a buff you'd only want to apply to an enemy.
Counter Measure- Plenty of energy barriers to pick but only one anti-barrier to select. The option to select counter-counter measures feels like a bad idea if only because it feels like a DM-tool to always have the last word when it comes to denying an arsenal/spell/maneuver option. At least it doesn't need materials but after you've invested some in it, most of your class' contribution is just sticking around to prevent something that may or may not actually be relevant.
And there seems to be no means to stop it.
Mechanization- Guess early game it makes it worth bringing a bunch of sleeping cats around. It would also work great with chickens to make food to feed the masses when they'll explode in a mecha-sized mess of gore. :)
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on March 01, 2017, 01:10:32 PM
Can someone with Zero State and the Heats feat combine the mecha-copies into a uber mecha? That's kind of funny. They technically all took Heats together at the same time. Ideally you choose an allied main pilot that isn't one of the split copies so the uber mecha can still get full resource recovery and benefits from a big boost to its super upgrades.
I'd like to do that. Anyone wanna do this?
I'm gonna edit an explicit no to that right away.

In particular because if it worked would result in an infinite loop  where the combined mecha splits again then re-combines once more, repeat for more and more upgrade and size stacking.


Support Scientist Staff
Materials: Are those supposed to be a daily/weekly/other thing? So far it seems you roll the mining production once and that's it.
That's what you have to work with until you make another factory mining base on which you get the roll you're looking for.
Yes, roll once and hope you get lucky. Or find an use for what you have to work with.

Although it may feel interesting I find that it makes it more interesting now as a cohort/follower since you wouldn't want to play a character whose class features are fixed on giving a passive that doesn't need them for the rest of the day so they can just chill home until maintenance time. And most require the base to really be useful, which begins at level 4.
Good points, modified the abilities a bit so they reward the scientist for sticking close to their experiments.

They can work without materials, but then those buffed suck more for the rest of the day or even for the rest of the fight, which makes it a shitty buffer. If you go for the anti-buffing standard action uses you spend half the day working and then there's nothing really interesting to do during the fights.
Hmmm, I guess that's what the super weapons will be for.

Also nothing stopping a scientist from taking some weapons themselves and adding some dakka. Never enuff dakka.

Convert Data- Mandatory. It gives you something to do in fights. It is also in feet instead of mecha scale. And there is no terrible effect after using it, which is always a nice way for things to be when you're trying to support your teammates.
Fixed scale. And yes this was supposed to be the less risky version.

Prototype Weaponry- Probably too strong for the permanent option. I don't see why one would want to invest more than one pick in this and not just take it for the perma. Maybe the standard action version should just be a less interesting weapon that doesn't last long or would have a very limited amount of ammo to it determined by the number of picks.
It another Support Staff Mechanic with Fix It is around, though, you can make plenty of super weapons for everyone.
Yes, synergy was intended. Although now the weapon is more reliable as long as the scientist remains close.

Experimental Module- I'd say it is almost the same as proto-weaponry, but it is a trap. Even though it sounds OP when permanent, you make your entire mecha volatile while its lasts, which is makes it a buff you'd only want to apply to an enemy.
As above, changed it so the mecha remains "safe" while close to the scientist.

Counter Measure- Plenty of energy barriers to pick but only one anti-barrier to select. The option to select counter-counter measures feels like a bad idea if only because it feels like a DM-tool to always have the last word when it comes to denying an arsenal/spell/maneuver option. At least it doesn't need materials but after you've invested some in it, most of your class' contribution is just sticking around to prevent something that may or may not actually be relevant.
Removed option for counter-counters, you're right it could be kinda dickish from the DM's side.
Added option to switch on the fly but then it only lasts 1d12 rounds and then is useless for 1d12 hours.

And there seems to be no means to stop it.
Kill the sciencetist. :p


Mechanization- Guess early game it makes it worth bringing a bunch of sleeping cats around. It would also work great with chickens to make food to feed the masses when they'll explode in a mecha-sized mess of gore. :)
Added some comments about that. Not gonna block it since yay utility, but mechanization is supposed to involve attaching motors and plating and whatnot to the creature so taste will not be so good.

Also put up first drafts of super weapons. Following your advice, made them something you want to use during combat.

Planning on more "simple" super weapons like nukes and orbital drops to be given to the military path. Destructive and reliable but make everybody hate you more because lots of collateral damage.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on March 01, 2017, 03:42:23 PM
Sometimes you just have to dive right in right?

First pass on Magitech weapons produces this.
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Little more focused on D&D scaling at the moment through but overall the damage values fall anywhere between 54%~17% damage reduction compared to pure Modern. Broken down it looks a little more like this.

Baseline was set at Greatsword @18Str, or 2d7+6 (13), you could have a little more or a little less depending on Race/Class.
Ballistics start at 4d6 (14) and have unlimited use and also they really don't have much variance. You can trade Autofire for increased range and that's about it. For every four levels they gain +3.5 on average, like by level 6 when you can attack twice you're looking at 35 damage. A 6th level Fighter with Melee Weapon Mastery & 18 Str deals 2d6+10 or 34 damage. Didn't keep going but looks fine.

Missiles start at 6d6 (21), it's more damage but limited use (twice per encounter per upgrade bought), they also are area weapons but offer a Save for 1/2 damage (10.5) using a static DC. Like Ballistics they basically gain a 3.5 per four levels but I played with dice & types. Like PL7 is 7d6 (24.5), well 4d12 (22) & 10d4 (25) feels different but it's not really that much.

For quick/easy scale, pure Modern games will simply use the default damage values found in Future/FutureTech. SWR on the other hand it's vastly out scaled and barely even able to break defenses, it'll probably get Dex to damage and not sure what else. I mean the upper end is 10d6 (35) which actually has a +1d6 bonus tied to it, comparatively Arsenal VII's Warhead Launchers are 7d12 (45.5) and they don't offer Reflex Saves across an 80mu line. Trying to say +50% dice doesn't work since I feel it gets too complicated, same with +1/die. Maybe +1/2 your level to damage might work.

Ideas?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on March 01, 2017, 03:49:11 PM
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Materials; Yes, roll once and hope you get lucky. Or find an use for what you have to work with.
Or take the base down and make it again until you roll what you're looking for.

Otherwise, good stuff! The changes make it a lot more playable. I'll read through it again with more attention later on.

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In particular because if it worked would result in an infinite loop  where the combined mecha splits again then re-combines once more, repeat for more and more upgrade and size stacking.
Makes me think that I should check for other ways a similar exploit could be reached through extra upgrade points, such as the Scientist's.
There is also the case of the upgrades that apply penalties to the pilot (such as half spirit recovery). Since the upgrades/arsenal that add spirit points are lost when not piloted, those penalties are also removed when the pilot isn't piloting the mecha.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on March 01, 2017, 09:11:13 PM
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Materials; Yes, roll once and hope you get lucky. Or find an use for what you have to work with.
Or take the base down and make it again until you roll what you're looking for.
The roll is made and only made when the area is first discovered, representing the type of raw materials available to work with. Clarified.

Otherwise, good stuff! The changes make it a lot more playable. I'll read through it again with more attention later on.
Looking forward to it.

Then only the medic up to do and next is unexpected pilot class(name pending)-somehow always finds random mechas to pilot, trips on secret passages and forgotten weapon caches, etc.

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In particular because if it worked would result in an infinite loop  where the combined mecha splits again then re-combines once more, repeat for more and more upgrade and size stacking.
Makes me think that I should check for other ways a similar exploit could be reached through extra upgrade points, such as the Scientist's.
Clarified anti-stacking for Experimental Module.

There is also the case of the upgrades that apply penalties to the pilot (such as half spirit recovery). Since the upgrades/arsenal that add spirit points are lost when not piloted, those penalties are also removed when the pilot isn't piloting the mecha.

Actually Zero State's penalty directly adresses the pilot. Clarified that the penalties apply to the pilot all the time too.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on March 02, 2017, 02:25:56 AM
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The roll is made and only made when the area is first discovered, representing the type of raw materials available to work with. Clarified.
Ah, so the area can be skipped until you find the one you're looking for. Not as bad then. Because it would really suck to have your build hinge on a single roll. The materials effectively split the Scientist into Scientist type A, Scientist type B and so on. It would have been simpler to just scratch the character until you get to play the type of scientist you're interested in.

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Then only the medic up to do and next is unexpected pilot class(name pending)-somehow always finds random mechas to pilot, trips on secret passages and forgotten weapon caches, etc.
Wouldn't such a pilot technically be a super pilot as well? I thought stumbling upon a mecha was part of their gig.

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Actually Zero State's penalty directly adresses the pilot. Clarified that the penalties apply to the pilot all the time too.
In that case shouldn't bonuses that apply to the pilot himself apply all the time as well? I see the term "main pilot" come up more often now, especially for stuff that affects the pilot himself, so it doesn't apply to any other pilot using the mecha anyway.

As for Sentient's Imprint upgrade, when it says the mecha gains the stats of the pilot, what exactly does it include? I imagine it certainly is meant to include the ability scores but is there anything else? Does it get the Hit Points, BAB, base save of the pilot and other similar statistics? A sentient mecha with soul of the machine upgrades and tek soul or imprinting Soul Up feats doesn't have the spirits class features so it has nothing to do with its spirit points anyway. Also, the term "main pilot" isn't present so it applies to the last person to have piloted it.

Convert Data
How exactly does that work? It says "Ignore any other bonus that would further increase this number, but penalties apply normally." Is that meant to mean that the bonus of Convert Data does not stack with any other bonus in the chosen stat?
Because, say for AC the base is 10 and everything else is a bonus. If Pilot A has an AC of 30 and Pilot B has an AC of 40. Then unless the Convert Data's max bonus is at least 21 Pilot A wouldn't benefit from it.
A lot may hinge on this as since the ability's temporary effect applies to every ally within range at once which can be either super OP or pretty meh unless you completely focus on that ability.

Experimental Module
Is it intended that some options of each material aren't having any synergy with each other?
Miniaturization/Zero Pattern ; Hyperdimensional Storage/Mysterious Power ; Main Weapon/Special Attack (a little)

Mechanization
Here's hoping someone isn't dumb enough to pick this before 3rd level and realize he can't apply it on nothin'.

Super Weapon: "fullround action for at least one round ago setting it up"
Sentence is weird. I think it is meant to say "full round action to set it up. Starting the next round after setting it up, you may activate it with a standard action unless mentioned otherwise.
Chronosphere
Send people into the future? Don't think that's a good idea. It puts "splitting the party" to a whole new level. And it can be abused. Soon as I read it I found a way to use this to peep into the future to collect info for the present.

Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on March 02, 2017, 06:26:21 AM
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The roll is made and only made when the area is first discovered, representing the type of raw materials available to work with. Clarified.
Ah, so the area can be skipped until you find the one you're looking for. Not as bad then. Because it would really suck to have your build hinge on a single roll. The materials effectively split the Scientist into Scientist type A, Scientist type B and so on. It would have been simpler to just scratch the character until you get to play the type of scientist you're interested in.
Well it's supposed to promote exploration and contacting other support staff to learn what materials are where.

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Then only the medic up to do and next is unexpected pilot class(name pending)-somehow always finds random mechas to pilot, trips on secret passages and forgotten weapon caches, etc.
Wouldn't such a pilot technically be a super pilot as well? I thought stumbling upon a mecha was part of their gig.
Ah, but the super pilot can not only be a fated thing, but also gets to pick what they want. Whereas the unexpected pilot will be "ok, today I found a Gespent loaded to the brim with missiles, crappy engine but extra plating. If it gets wrecked (and it will get wrecked) I'll find something else completely different". The anti-planning class basically, you literally roll with what the dice gods grant you.

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Actually Zero State's penalty directly adresses the pilot. Clarified that the penalties apply to the pilot all the time too.
In that case shouldn't bonuses that apply to the pilot himself apply all the time as well? I see the term "main pilot" come up more often now, especially for stuff that affects the pilot himself, so it doesn't apply to any other pilot using the mecha anyway.
Again, HEATS. If I let the benefits apply when not actually piloting, then it opens up stacking loops when the mechas combine.

As for Sentient's Imprint upgrade, when it says the mecha gains the stats of the pilot, what exactly does it include? I imagine it certainly is meant to include the ability scores but is there anything else? Does it get the Hit Points, BAB, base save of the pilot and other similar statistics? A sentient mecha with soul of the machine upgrades and tek soul or imprinting Soul Up feats doesn't have the spirits class features so it has nothing to do with its spirit points anyway. Also, the term "main pilot" isn't present so it applies to the last person to have piloted it.
Ability scores, Bab, saves, clarified. The mecha already has its own HP.

Also yes, not very synergetic with Soul of the Machine, since Imprint is supposed to be more cold sci-finess and Soul of the Machine is more hotblooded mystic tech. Limited to main pilot.

Convert Data
How exactly does that work? It says "Ignore any other bonus that would further increase this number, but penalties apply normally." Is that meant to mean that the bonus of Convert Data does not stack with any other bonus in the chosen stat?
Because, say for AC the base is 10 and everything else is a bonus. If Pilot A has an AC of 30 and Pilot B has an AC of 40. Then unless the Convert Data's max bonus is at least 21 Pilot A wouldn't benefit from it.
A lot may hinge on this as since the ability's temporary effect applies to every ally within range at once which can be either super OP or pretty meh unless you completely focus on that ability.
It means that once someody is benefiting from the Convert Data they can't benefit from any other bonus to the stat. A simple example is that if you're benefiting from Convert Data for attack and AC, using Focus won't do anything for you neither will be being near somebody with the leadership feat.

Anyway it's mostly supposed to benefit mooks while those who are already pretty good by themselves are best as research data.

Experimental Module
Is it intended that some options of each material aren't having any synergy with each other?
Miniaturization/Zero Pattern ; Hyperdimensional Storage/Mysterious Power ; Main Weapon/Special Attack (a little)
Yes.

Mechanization
Here's hoping someone isn't dumb enough to pick this before 3rd level and realize he can't apply it on nothin'.
It would work with 1/2 and 1/3 CR creatures. You even mentioned cats and everything.

Super Weapon: "fullround action for at least one round ago setting it up"
Sentence is weird. I think it is meant to say "full round action to set it up. Starting the next round after setting it up, you may activate it with a standard action unless mentioned otherwise.
That works nicely, thanks!

Chronosphere
Send people into the future? Don't think that's a good idea. It puts "splitting the party" to a whole new level.

And it can be abused. Soon as I read it I found a way to use this to peep into the future to collect info for the present.

I'll have to first ask what amazing trick you discovered to communicate with the past. In which case you don't need the chronosphere, you can just have your future self warn you.

Not too worried about splitting the party since they would need to be caught ouside their mechas meaning something already went horribly wrong.

Also alternate realities and butterly effects and stuff, aka sending information into the past messes the time-up continuum and changes the future.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on March 02, 2017, 06:36:18 AM
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Again, HEATS. If I let the benefits apply when not actually piloting, then it opens up stacking loops when the mechas combine.

How? The same bonus types from same or different sources don't stack, so only the highest prevails, no?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on March 02, 2017, 09:23:16 PM
First repass over the material, couple entries better worded and more images added for the missing areas. Spell were dropped to 4 but are now ran through Hybrid Points which now gives you a reason to invest into Constitution instead of dumping it. If you start with 14 Con for example you can only mech up twice per day at the first level for two rounds each. It also costs points to cast spells too so the points awarded are fairly low but quickly increased, however it ignores spell buffs so you can't cheat up extra points by spending them. Corruption Armaments, or Immoral Weapons for the perverse, well come in on a sooner level but also consume Hybrid Points when I get around to creating the entry. Current vague idea is instead of simply increasing the damage I'll use some of the more interesting WSA & Arsenal properties. Point consumption will also be used in some of the misc upgrades, like hp regen will consume points too.

Energy Weapons added, they stick to the damage formula laid down and offer tiny variants. Mostly it just offers fire damage, I had to expend on ion a bit too. In Modern they were pretty worthless, low damage and subject to the Antishock Arrays (resist 20!), but now they actually deal more than the damage curve since they auto-heal 5dmg/rnd and Spirit-based healing can still be activated by the pilot even if the mecha goes inert. Specifically against SRW mecha they drain energy and they ignore force field effects instead of dealing damage which means I also created a reason for a Super Pilot to invest in Alien Alloy.

A couple days from now I'll post it as it's own thread once I get a majority of the ground work finished. I also have a table bug somewhere in the code to deal with too :(
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on March 03, 2017, 12:56:40 AM
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Again, HEATS. If I let the benefits apply when not actually piloting, then it opens up stacking loops when the mechas combine.

How? The same bonus types from same or different sources don't stack, so only the highest prevails, no?


It opens murky waters where the secondary pilots will still be benefiting and depending on how you read it, plus the secondary pilots may benefit from the stacked souls of the machine from the combined robot and everybody ends with a crapload more spirit and spirit regen even after they exit. And that's simply not worth the trouble when Soul of the Machine is already pretty popular even when not open to such stacking abuses.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on March 03, 2017, 01:20:56 AM
So you can't just say none of the Zero abilities can work while under the effects of HEATS?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on March 03, 2017, 02:49:34 AM
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Again, HEATS. If I let the benefits apply when not actually piloting, then it opens up stacking loops when the mechas combine.
I do not see how. If the mecha is no more the Soul of the Machine effects no longer apply. When they apply, it applies to the main pilot. When Heats combine mechas, the original mechas are out of the game as you get the new combined mecha so the SotM upgrades are no longer keyed to their previous main pilot. The combined mecha's SotM upgrades are keyed the main pilot of the combined mecha. Once the combined mecha splits back into its mecha components, the original SotM upgrades return to their main mecha. Secondary pilots have no possible way to benefit. At least, I don't see any.

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It means that once someody is benefiting from the Convert Data they can't benefit from any other bonus to the stat. A simple example is that if you're benefiting from Convert Data for attack and AC, using Focus won't do anything for you neither will be being near somebody with the leadership feat.
So my previous example applied. The base AC is 10 so any other bonus types over 10 does not stack with the bonus from Convert Data.

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It would work with 1/2 and 1/3 CR creatures. You even mentioned cats and everything.
Not until third level since level 2-2 = 0. CR½ and ⅓ > 0. Unless I missed a rule somewhere that fractal CRs count as 0 for such things.

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I'll have to first ask what amazing trick you discovered to communicate with the past. In which case you don't need the chronosphere, you can just have your future self warn you.
Nothing special. Any effect that allows you to reroll a save to undo the effect would take care of it and return you to the present. Just have a weak Future-sender and be unwilling but willingly lose the save the first time (or repeat 'till you fail). Before you use the thing to undo the effect, use any other trick that would make the character get more information than a simple look around would provide.
An interesting one could be Past-Old History. Pretty much nobody has "present knowledge" of what the character did in the past while he was in the future. Because before he returned to the present, in the past, he was in the future. He initiates the maneuver and declares that he did a bar-run then, Gather Information, and got a good idea of whats going on from his fellow drinking pals of the future. Nobody in the present can contradict it happened back then when he was in the future, so it did will have happened.  :rolleyes

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Not too worried about splitting the party since they would need to be caught ouside their mechas meaning something already went horribly wrong.
Judging from the campaign so far, it could have happened a few times. And there isn't all that many ways to undo it. If they just died at they can be resurrected but when you're in the past there aren't all that many ways to return. And the worst is you're still playing so you really are split from the party unless you give up the character, and whatever you do has no effect on the other team while what they do may have an effect for your own timeline.

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Also alternate realities and butterly effects and stuff, aka sending information into the past messes the time-up continuum and changes the future.
It isn't all that hard to calibrate. Do it twice and see if something changed from having done it once. Reapply until you got a good idea of the possibilities. But just doing it once really helps. Taking a list of the future lottery tickets, for one.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on March 03, 2017, 07:14:54 AM
So you can't just say none of the Zero abilities can work while under the effects of HEATS?
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Again, HEATS. If I let the benefits apply when not actually piloting, then it opens up stacking loops when the mechas combine.
I do not see how. If the mecha is no more the Soul of the Machine effects no longer apply. When they apply, it applies to the main pilot. When Heats combine mechas, the original mechas are out of the game as you get the new combined mecha so the SotM upgrades are no longer keyed to their previous main pilot. The combined mecha's SotM upgrades are keyed the main pilot of the combined mecha. Once the combined mecha splits back into its mecha components, the original SotM upgrades return to their main mecha. Secondary pilots have no possible way to benefit. At least, I don't see any.
Main point still stands, Soul of the Machine is already pretty good without need of it working when the pilot is somewhere else.

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It would work with 1/2 and 1/3 CR creatures. You even mentioned cats and everything.
Not until third level since level 2-2 = 0. CR½ and ⅓ > 0. Unless I missed a rule somewhere that fractal CRs count as 0 for such things.
There is no such rule, however there is the rule that CR never goes to zero but instead if you had to reduce it below 1 you start dividing instead of subtracting.

The classic example is the kobold that when with npc levels has CR equal to their character level -3. So a kobold warrior has CR 1/4 instead of  CR -2.

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I'll have to first ask what amazing trick you discovered to communicate with the past. In which case you don't need the chronosphere, you can just have your future self warn you.
Nothing special. Any effect that allows you to reroll a save to undo the effect would take care of it and return you to the present. Just have a weak Future-sender and be unwilling but willingly lose the save the first time (or repeat 'till you fail). Before you use the thing to undo the effect, use any other trick that would make the character get more information than a simple look around would provide.
An interesting one could be Past-Old History. Pretty much nobody has "present knowledge" of what the character did in the past while he was in the future. Because before he returned to the present, in the past, he was in the future. He initiates the maneuver and declares that he did a bar-run then, Gather Information, and got a good idea of whats going on from his fellow drinking pals of the future. Nobody in the present can contradict it happened back then when he was in the future, so it did will have happened.  :rolleyes
I'm afraid it's not as simple as you're making it to be. In particular because the effect-reversing abilities have one of two conditions:
a)The effect is still ongoing. But the chronosphere shift is instantaneous.
or
b)The effect happened on the last round and happened to yourself. But the chronosphere shift happened thousands of rounds ago.

The only ability I remember that may go through both of those is Erase History from someone staying behind. But activating a superweapon is a fullround+standard action which is beyond Erase History's inherent limits.

Even then there would be the following to consider:
-You can't just reverse the "bad" effect of going to the future, you would also be reversing the "good" effect of witnessing the future. So you could get somebody back, but since they never went to the future, they know nothing about it.
-The player can't actually act until their turn in the time sequence arrives, which will be days of in-game time. Just like somebody affected by Time Hop simply doesn't get to act until the turn timer catches up with them. And since the sent character didn't get to do anything until the party temporally catches up with them, then it means they indeed failed to return to the past.

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Not too worried about splitting the party since they would need to be caught ouside their mechas meaning something already went horribly wrong.
Judging from the campaign so far, it could have happened a few times. And there isn't all that many ways to undo it. If they just died at they can be resurrected but when you're in the past there aren't all that many ways to return. And the worst is you're still playing so you really are split from the party unless you give up the character, and whatever you do has no effect on the other team while what they do may have an effect for your own timeline.
I made it a time scale of days so the party can just timeskip a month or so. Not the end of the world. Longer times have been spent finding resources for ressurecting somebody when nobody on the party can do it.

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Also alternate realities and butterly effects and stuff, aka sending information into the past messes the time-up continuum and changes the future.
It isn't all that hard to calibrate. Do it twice and see if something changed from having done it once. Reapply until you got a good idea of the possibilities. But just doing it once really helps. Taking a list of the future lottery tickets, for one.
It has a 1d100 day spread. Even if you find ways around what I already mentioned, that would still mean thousands of attempts to get any meaningful statistics, and even then the future has infinite paths. Heck, it could be a campaign on its own right.  :P
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on March 03, 2017, 10:22:36 PM
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The effect is still ongoing. But the chronosphere shift is instantaneous.
Those effects may not all require the effect to not be instantaneous, and then again, the effect isn't quite instantaneous since it takes 1d100 days to take effect.
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The effect happened on the last round and happened to yourself. But the chronosphere shift happened thousands of rounds ago.
The effect ended a round ago and went on for 1d100 days. If it counts as instantaneous, then as far as the character affected is concerned the effect happened the previous round.

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The only ability I remember that may go through both of those is Erase History from someone staying behind. But activating a superweapon is a fullround+standard action which is beyond Erase History's inherent limits.
Coincidentally, it was the first effect that came to mind when I read Chronosphere. Activating the superweapon is not a fullround+standard action, however.
It is a full round action to set it up. And then it is a standard action to activate. You only need to undo the activation. The character that stays behind and the one that goes into the future can also be the same character.

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-You can't just reverse the "bad" effect of going to the future, you would also be reversing the "good" effect of witnessing the future. So you could get somebody back, but since they never went to the future, they know nothing about it.
So after something has been erased from the past, nobody including the eraser remembers what was erased? It could seem that since it never happened, he likewise never erased it, which also should give him back the action used to erase the thing since he never erased it and it is still the current round, but that isn't the case as it does not reverse everything that happened in reaction to the erased thing, only the effect of the thing itself. So the action used to erase is still lost.

For example, a scholar takes a move action and goes into a trapped room. He triggers a trap on the way and a poisoned arrow ends up sticking out of his arse. Worse, the door shuts down behind him and the room starts to fill with water. Scholar decides that "hey, maybe this was a bad idea" and erases the move action he took to go into that room. First thing he does once he is back in the hall before that room? He goes back into that room since he forgot he erased the move and what happened on the way. Enter perpetual loop.
But since only the move action is undone, the only thing that changes is the movement of the scholar, so he is back into the hall but the door in front of him is shut and the room filling with water and he is still poisoned and hurt by that arrow. He could perhaps had undone the trap's action to shoot the poisoned arrow or that other trap's action of shutting the door and flooding the place, but although those happened because he moved there in the first place, only the movement is undone so he doesn't get to undo the effects of everyone's action in one go. Replace the trap by some dude activating them if trap actions cannot be undone. But he'll remember going there and that it was a terrible idea.

Likewise, undoing the chronosphere's activation returns the character back in the present but doesn't cancel everything that happened in that alternate dimension where some bloke appeared, drank his ass off with his friends and mysteriously disappeared.

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The player can't actually act until their turn in the time sequence arrives, which will be days of in-game time.
Past-Old History doesn't mind that detail. Only that he was there and nobody in the present has any proof to the contrary that he got to do stuff in that past-future.

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Just like somebody affected by Time Hop simply doesn't get to act until the turn timer catches up with them. I made it a time scale of days so the party can just timeskip a month or so. Not the end of the world. Longer times have been spent finding resources for ressurecting somebody when nobody on the party can do it.
Time Hop however clearly states that the affected character is gone and reappears when the power ends. It has a duration. If you want this to be instantaneous those affected aren't simply waiting for the 1d100 days to go by but instantly act in their own timeline 1d100 days later. If the duration is 1d100 days, it could indeed works as Time Hop though it should keep the same kind of clarification as to what exactly happens mechanically. The buffs of the affected character are on pause during the temporal journey and do not expire or similar.
But as for spending time to resurrect people and such, 1d100 days of game time can pretty much mean game over. Just in our campaign we've spent about 2 game days over several years. How long is a player on the bench for 1d100 days? He's just rolling a new character and that's that. By the time the character is back in the present the player will probably have entirely forgotten about it. If the player is still alive.

Anyway. All that to say that any time-based effect going beyond X-Y rounds is probably not such a good idea. Minutes or a day at best and that would be pretty darn epic.
Even Mass Time Hop affects only the willing. And isn't available starting level 1.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on March 04, 2017, 02:45:22 AM
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The effect is still ongoing. But the chronosphere shift is instantaneous.
Those effects may not all require the effect to not be instantaneous, and then again, the effect isn't quite instantaneous since it takes 1d100 days to take effect.
It's instantaneous in the temporal scale just like teleport is instantenous in the physical scale.

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The effect happened on the last round and happened to yourself. But the chronosphere shift happened thousands of rounds ago.
The effect ended a round ago and went on for 1d100 days. If it counts as instantaneous, then as far as the character affected is concerned the effect happened the previous round.
Saying that effect durations are based on the character's perception is a massive broken can of worms and you don't need chronospheres at all to break it in a million pieces. You could just go "lalalala, man I'm bored, time's passing super slow for me, so my temporary buffs last forever from my perspective!" or "lalala time goes so fast, hey that stun already wore out from my perspective!".

If the temporal shift happened at 12 pm of Saturday 1st of March, it happened at 12 pm of saturday 1st of March, and a character temporally displaced to 12pm of the 29th of March is now 28x24x60x10 rounds after.

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The only ability I remember that may go through both of those is Erase History from someone staying behind. But activating a superweapon is a fullround+standard action which is beyond Erase History's inherent limits.
Coincidentally, it was the first effect that came to mind when I read Chronosphere. Activating the superweapon is not a fullround+standard action, however.
It is a full round action to set it up. And then it is a standard action to activate. You only need to undo the activation. The character that stays behind and the one that goes into the future can also be the same character.
Clarified that it counts as a fullround+standard actions for effects that care about it.

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-You can't just reverse the "bad" effect of going to the future, you would also be reversing the "good" effect of witnessing the future. So you could get somebody back, but since they never went to the future, they know nothing about it.
So after something has been erased from the past, nobody including the eraser remembers what was erased? It could seem that since it never happened, he likewise never erased it, which also should give him back the action used to erase the thing since he never erased it and it is still the current round, but that isn't the case as it does not reverse everything that happened in reaction to the erased thing, only the effect of the thing itself. So the action used to erase is still lost.

For example, a scholar takes a move action and goes into a trapped room. He triggers a trap on the way and a poisoned arrow ends up sticking out of his arse. Worse, the door shuts down behind him and the room starts to fill with water. Scholar decides that "hey, maybe this was a bad idea" and erases the move action he took to go into that room. First thing he does once he is back in the hall before that room? He goes back into that room since he forgot he erased the move and what happened on the way. Enter perpetual loop.
But since only the move action is undone, the only thing that changes is the movement of the scholar, so he is back into the hall but the door in front of him is shut and the room filling with water and he is still poisoned and hurt by that arrow. He could perhaps had undone the trap's action to shoot the poisoned arrow or that other trap's action of shutting the door and flooding the place, but although those happened because he moved there in the first place, only the movement is undone so he doesn't get to undo the effects of everyone's action in one go. Replace the trap by some dude activating them if trap actions cannot be undone. But he'll remember going there and that it was a terrible idea.
That example is already wrong because traps don't take actions in the first place, that with not being creatures and stuff. Otherwise you could undo the sun's own movement.

And yes, if you did undo the movement, the trap wouldn't have triggered and the scholar won't have a poisoned ass. The maneuver even mentions "all evidence mysteriously vanishes" and "Damage inflicted is healed, status effects are removed, creatures return to their previous positions. " The reason it doesn't end in a perpetual loop are two:
-Time is still passing. So if the scholar finds themselves back staring at the door and don't remember anything, they should start getting suspicious that door is bad news.
-Butterfly effect. After enough loops, the scholar is bound to just go "don't feel like going through that door now" and pick something else.

If you retain full knowledge from erased actions, that's a lot more prone to abuse if you ask me.
Not to mention the headache of figuring out what gets cherry-pickling reversed or not. What if the scholar in your example had dropped a bomb inside or something? What if they were using some ability of their own that triggers while moving?

Likewise, undoing the chronosphere's activation returns the character back in the present but doesn't cancel everything that happened in that alternate dimension where some bloke appeared, drank his ass off with his friends and mysteriously disappeared.

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The player can't actually act until their turn in the time sequence arrives, which will be days of in-game time.
Past-Old History doesn't mind that detail. Only that he was there and nobody in the present has any proof to the contrary that he got to do stuff in that past-future.
Except it's not the past. It's the future, and the maneuver specifically mentions it only works for actions that could be taken in the past. Even from the character's own perspective what will happen in a bunch of days is the future.

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Just like somebody affected by Time Hop simply doesn't get to act until the turn timer catches up with them. I made it a time scale of days so the party can just timeskip a month or so. Not the end of the world. Longer times have been spent finding resources for ressurecting somebody when nobody on the party can do it.
Time Hop however clearly states that the affected character is gone and reappears when the power ends. It has a duration. If you want this to be instantaneous those affected aren't simply waiting for the 1d100 days to go by but instantly act in their own timeline 1d100 days later.
That would be a bit hard since first the rest of the party need to decide what to do for the next 1d100 days to know what the character sent to the future now knows.

If the duration is 1d100 days, it could indeed works as Time Hop though it should keep the same kind of clarification as to what exactly happens mechanically. The buffs of the affected character are on pause during the temporal journey and do not expire or similar.
Well since it's not a duration but a time displacement, there's no need. The character was at time A. Now they're at time B. Just like teleport moves you from place A to place B.

But as for spending time to resurrect people and such, 1d100 days of game time can pretty much mean game over. Just in our campaign we've spent about 2 game days over several years. How long is a player on the bench for 1d100 days? He's just rolling a new character and that's that. By the time the character is back in the present the player will probably have entirely forgotten about it. If the player is still alive.
Any character who can't at least lay low and survive by themselves for some days had no business adventuring in the first place and should indeed be retired.

Anyway reviewing the campaign so far, the only chances it could've happened to the party were in the battle outside the dome and outside the colony ship where the only mecha-less people were fighting for only 1-2. And they have great saves.

Anyway. All that to say that any time-based effect going beyond X-Y rounds is probably not such a good idea. Minutes or a day at best and that would be pretty darn epic.
Even Mass Time Hop affects only the willing. And isn't available starting level 1.
Being chopped to pieces and remains burned is available at level 1. You don't see anyone complaing how hard it's to get back from that at that level, right?

But ok, reducing it to minutes is a good compromise.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on March 04, 2017, 03:08:33 AM
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It's instantaneous in the temporal scale just like teleport is instantenous in the physical scale.
And if you teleport a distance that would take you 7 days to reach on foot, the character hasn't magically lost 7 days of real time by teleporting......


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Saying that effect durations are based on the character's perception is a massive broken can of worms and you don't need chronospheres at all to break it in a million pieces. You could just go "lalalala, man I'm bored, time's passing super slow for me, so my temporary buffs last forever from my perspective!" or "lalala time goes so fast, hey that stun already wore out from my perspective!".

If the temporal shift happened at 12 pm of Saturday 1st of March, it happened at 12 pm of saturday 1st of March, and a character temporally displaced to 12pm of the 29th of March is now 28x24x60x10 rounds after.

Yanno what you're saying here means that when the character reappears after using that ability, not only would their buffs have expired but they'd have died from Thirst and/or Starvation 28 days ago......
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Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on March 04, 2017, 05:34:37 AM
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It's instantaneous in the temporal scale just like teleport is instantenous in the physical scale.
And if you teleport a distance that would take you 7 days to reach on foot, the character hasn't magically lost 7 days of real time by teleporting......
No, but you'll miss any and all treasure/plot between those points.  :p

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Saying that effect durations are based on the character's perception is a massive broken can of worms and you don't need chronospheres at all to break it in a million pieces. You could just go "lalalala, man I'm bored, time's passing super slow for me, so my temporary buffs last forever from my perspective!" or "lalala time goes so fast, hey that stun already wore out from my perspective!".

If the temporal shift happened at 12 pm of Saturday 1st of March, it happened at 12 pm of saturday 1st of March, and a character temporally displaced to 12pm of the 29th of March is now 28x24x60x10 rounds after.

Yanno what you're saying here means that when the character reappears after using that ability, not only would their buffs have expired but they'd have died from Thirst and/or Starvation 28 days ago......
(click to show/hide)
Fun fact, starvation rules in D&D can't actually kill you, they just keep piling up nonlethal damage.

However that wouldn't be a matter here since as teleport doesn't tire you as if you had walked all the distance (nor burn you if you went through lava nor drown you if you went through water), what's temporally between point A and B in time doesn't matter either for one shifted by the chronosphere.

More of a curiosity now however since now the shift is only in minutes.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on March 05, 2017, 02:01:47 AM
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Saying that effect durations are based on the character's perception is a massive broken can of worms and you don't need chronospheres at all to break it in a million pieces.
Not talking about fluff perspective but literally. Mechanically. The character doesn't experience the skipped time. He doesn't even exist in between (not counting possible multiple existences and existence beyond time) and just goes right to X time in the future as if the previous round was X time -1 round and for that character that is true in every way. If he is transported through time, time passes without him and so the actual effects of the passage of time cannot affect him. But I get your point as I'm sure you do mine.

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That example is already wrong because traps don't take actions in the first place
Hence why I said you can replace the traps by people spending actions to activate the effects.

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And yes, if you did undo the movement, the trap wouldn't have triggered and the scholar won't have a poisoned ass. The maneuver even mentions "all evidence mysteriously vanishes" and "Damage inflicted is healed, status effects are removed, creatures return to their previous positions. "
I'll take note of that. Still applies against someone that would have taken an AoO to make a poisoned attack in response to that movement and so on?
Though, as to that particular maneuvers, what you quoted is the fluff text. What effectively happens is that "the effects of the chosen action are reversed. Damage inflicted is healed, status effects are removed, creatures return to their previous positions". In the example, the effect of the movement is movement, and this is what is being reversed. The poisoning and other stuff happened in consequence to it, but they weren't the effect of the movement itself.
If you rule that it cancels everything that relied on the canceled action to happen, then all right. Just noting that the way the effect is described it seems to only reverse the canceled action. Not the others that weren't chosen to be canceled.

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Any character who can't at least lay low and survive by themselves for some days had no business adventuring in the first place and should indeed be retired.
I don't see it the connection. That's rather hard to do when you are before 4th level and got a redeeming quest to get through to get your mecha back. Or when your mecha is just too big to go somewhere you have to go.

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Anyway reviewing the campaign so far, the only chances it could've happened to the party were in the battle outside the dome and outside the colony ship where the only mecha-less people were fighting for only 1-2. And they have great saves.
Amaterasu was without a mecha for pretty much the entire period on Ragol though now that a lower mecha can be acquired until the redeeming quest is complete, it isn't has harsh. Almost the entire party was without a mecha during at the spa trip. In swimsuits, no fights, but there could have been unless there is a narrative law that ensures there is never trouble during a beach party. Good saves help but this can be done at level 1. Get 50+ of those, give them the coordinates to spam it at and someone's gonna roll a natural 1 eventually. The Protectora could be full of those guys ready to focus fire enemies, keep a list of dates and targets currently on their future-travel queue and all ready an action to mass-spam them as soon as they are back to keep enemies permanently in the future. That's a new concept for a prison.
Being chopped to pieces and burning remains doesn't normally require epic spells/very high level psionics to pull off. Minutes is still OP considering this is Time Hop on crack, but a lot less worse, even with a prep round and cooldown to offset the infinite uses per day. Thanks.
The clause about it counting as a full+standard for effects is weird and can give rise to questions about how it works that aren't related to the original intention. The kind weirdness that feels that you're trying to stop something but you're not fixing the right thing, which opens the door to other stuff. For example, imagine an ability that allows you to cancel an action and get the actions used back (not saying there is one, but with the stuff that keeps popping up in these homebrews we can expect similar issues); you'd activate it with a standard, buy it back to gain an extra fullround action.
Personally I don't care either way. Just giving my impressions.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on March 05, 2017, 02:39:23 AM
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And yes, if you did undo the movement, the trap wouldn't have triggered and the scholar won't have a poisoned ass. The maneuver even mentions "all evidence mysteriously vanishes" and "Damage inflicted is healed, status effects are removed, creatures return to their previous positions. "
I'll take note of that. Still applies against someone that would have taken an AoO to make a poisoned attack in response to that movement and so on?
Though, as to that particular maneuvers, what you quoted is the fluff text. What effectively happens is that "the effects of the chosen action are reversed. Damage inflicted is healed, status effects are removed, creatures return to their previous positions". In the example, the effect of the movement is movement, and this is what is being reversed. The poisoning and other stuff happened in consequence to it, but they weren't the effect of the movement itself.
If you rule that it cancels everything that relied on the canceled action to happen, then all right. Just noting that the way the effect is described it seems to only reverse the canceled action. Not the others that weren't chosen to be canceled.
You're still claiming traps take actions. You're saying that 2+2=5 so radioactive bananas.

So let's consider another example.
Somebody uses a scroll of fireball to burn down an orphanage along the orhans inside.
The scroll didn't take an action.
The fireball didn't take an action.
The orphanage burning didn't take actions.
The orphans burning didn't take actions.

By your radioactive bananas, reversing the action of the guy using the scroll accomplishes absolutely nothing, and the orphanage and orphans are still left burned to a crisp.


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Any character who can't at least lay low and survive by themselves for some days had no business adventuring in the first place and should indeed be retired.
I don't see it the connection. That's rather hard to do when you are before 4th level and got a redeeming quest to get through to get your mecha back. Or when your mecha is just too big to go somewhere you have to go.

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Anyway reviewing the campaign so far, the only chances it could've happened to the party were in the battle outside the dome and outside the colony ship where the only mecha-less people were fighting for only 1-2. And they have great saves.
Amaterasu was without a mecha for pretty much the entire period on Ragol though now that a lower mecha can be acquired until the redeeming quest is complete, it isn't has harsh. Almost the entire party was without a mecha during at the spa trip. In swimsuits, no fights, but there could have been unless there is a narrative law that ensures there is never trouble during a beach party. Good saves help but this can be done at level 1. Get 50+ of those, give them the coordinates to spam it at and someone's gonna roll a natural 1 eventually. The Protectora could be full of those guys ready to focus fire enemies, keep a list of dates and targets currently on their future-travel queue and all ready an action to mass-spam them as soon as they are back to keep enemies permanently in the future. That's a new concept for a prison.
I guess that since you keep missing the part where traps don't have actions of their own, I can forgive you for missing the "Super Weapons don't demand line of sight or effect, but they demand you to be in an open space (open skies/seas/void) to use them." bit. So no, you can't just load 50+ support staff inside a container/ship for super weapon spam, and if you're inside a big building yourself, you're pretty safe too.

And before you bring your "what about my uber camera network with zero lag and full universal coverage?", again that's why there's jammers and anti-radar and whatnot.


Being chopped to pieces and burning remains doesn't normally require epic spells/very high level psionics to pull off. Minutes is still OP considering this is Time Hop on crack, but a lot less worse, even with a prep round and cooldown to offset the infinite uses per day. Thanks.
The clause about it counting as a full+standard for effects is weird and can give rise to questions about how it works that aren't related to the original intention. The kind weirdness that feels that you're trying to stop something but you're not fixing the right thing, which opens the door to other stuff. For example, imagine an ability that allows you to cancel an action and get the actions used back (not saying there is one, but with the stuff that keeps popping up in these homebrews we can expect similar issues); you'd activate it with a standard, buy it back to gain an extra fullround action.
Personally I don't care either way. Just giving my impressions.
You're giving me the impression your ability to bring up relevant examples is degenerating at a speed faster than light itself.

Since the hypothetical ability you just described would be beyond borked by itself as it's a one step infinite loop.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on March 05, 2017, 02:46:27 AM
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You're still claiming traps take actions. You're saying that 2+2=5 so radioactive bananas.
No. As I said twice now, just replace them with people spending actions to do the same thing.

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I guess that since you keep missing the part where traps
You keep missing the part where you can just replace them by people.
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I can forgive you for missing the "Super Weapons don't demand line of sight or effect
I didn't. That is precisely why a bunch of them can be kept somewhere to spam on command. The ship can keep an open hatch for them. The target being inside a building doesn't help because it ignores line of effect.

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You're giving me the impression your ability to bring up relevant examples is degenerating at a speed faster than light itself.
I'll take nonsense talk as unwillingness to answer. If you don't care about it then let's just leave it be and we'll see how it goes in-game.


Edit: Oh, you put more in there. Let's see.
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So let's consider another example.
Somebody uses a scroll of fireball to burn down an orphanage along the orhans inside.
The scroll didn't take an action.
The fireball didn't take an action.
The orphanage burning didn't take actions.
The orphans burning didn't take actions.
The scroll didn't use itself. The fireball is the effect of the action and the building burning is the damage of the fireball, which is the effect of the action negated and is all part of what the fireball itself does. So far so good.
If someone gets an AoO against the scroll reader and hits him but doesn't manage to break his concentration and use the scroll, negating the action to activate the scroll removes the effect of activating the scroll aka fireball that burns the orphanage. Are you intending this to also cancel the AoO even though that action isn't the one chosen to be negated and that it isn't the effect of the negated action? Because cancelling your own actions will not require an enemy failing a save and that way you cancel their actions anyway without one. Was that intended? Because when I read that only the effect of the negated action is negated, it doesn't seem to include the effects of other actions that weren't chosen to negated. The fluff of the maneuvers implies everything is canceled, but the text of the effect makes it feel like it doesn't go beyond the negated action itself. That's all.
It can go further. Because the orphanage was burning, someone else applied a water spell to quench the fire that now got negated. Is that caster getting his water spell use back since he never had to cast it in the first place because now there wasn't any fire to quench?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on March 05, 2017, 11:00:12 PM
So, today we put a player character HEATS combiner into play. Overall, it was a lot of fun, but also quite overpowered. One of the pilots was a Ship Captain with Humongous Ship, and another one was a Super Robot. The result was Colossal+2. Due to the way weapon size scaling works, there are dozens of bonus d6s of damage going around, especially on the Heavy weapons and Main Weapon. The multiple spirit pools means it’s easy to afford to Strike every turn, though given multi-pilot machines in SRW games, this is probably working as intended.

The EN cost wasn’t really an impediment. At 170 EN, using a Study Type Propelant [sic] each turn easily kept us ahead of the 20EN cost per turn. In order to mitigate this to some extent, one player suggests increasing the beginning and end of turn EN cost as size increases. For example, maybe 10 + 1 point for each size above Large, so our C++ combiner would need to spend 15EN at the start and end of each turn. A more aggressive change would be to make the EN cost scale the same way bonus damage dice from size do. In that situation the beginning and end of turn EN costs could be:
table]
 
Combiner SizeEN Cost (Paid at Start and End of Turn)
Medium10 EN
Large11 EN
Huge12 EN
Gargantuan14 EN
Colossal16 EN
C+19 EN
C++23 EN
C+328 EN
C+434 EN

It may also be necessary to nerf the weapon size scaling off the high end of the chart. The core of the chart seems fine. Multiple component units in our combiner started at Medium size, so they gained 1d6 moving from M to L and L to H, then two dice moving from H to G and G to C. So far, only a little worrisome: +6d6 by moving from M to C. Our group's understanding of the size chart after Colossal is that each further size step cumulatively increases weapon damage dice by (2+number of steps beyond Colossal)d6. This means that every additional point of growth beyond Colossal yields ever-increasing dividends. Increasing size from C to C+ adds 3d6 from size scaling, which is a 50% increase compared to the total of all previous size increases up to this point and brings the subtotal up to +9d6. This still isn't so bad, since 9d6 is the same kind of damage output you'd expect from a full spellcaster at our level. But we're C++, which means there's another 4d6 for increasing size from C+ to C++, bringing us to a subtotal of 13d6, which is definitely beyond the power curve.

This size was achieved via fusion with a battleship starting at Colossal and with the Humongous Ship feat. (Please don't remove the ability of Ship Captain to take HEATS, as this has been seen in wonderful cases such as the King J-Der and Hyper Galaxy Gurren Lagann.) Further size increase can be obtained by spending the Super Robot Upgrade points granted by HEATS. We're level 9, so we could increase two steps further through Growth, increasing first by 5d6 (to +18d6), then 6d6 (to +24d6). While dealing that kind of damage is fun, it's far too much for a standard attack at Level 9. A possible way to fix this would be removing the feature allowing a Ship Captain to get a Colossal Battleship for free, restricting them to Huge by default.

In addition, due to the fact that it got to use all the hardpoints of the constituent units, and one of them was a Mecha Engineer Prototype, it had 13 hardpoints. This means the combiner can take a majority of all Arsenal level 1 and 2 accessories and have space for Study Type Propelants [sic] left over. This could just as easily get out of hand merely by having a large number of units combine. Maybe the combined number of Hardpoints should be the highest number among the components (like EN) rather than a sum (like HP)?

Summary of suggestions:
Increase beginning and end of turn EN cost to 10 + 1 point per size over Large or to the same rate as size bonus damage dice
Reduce the number of additional damage dice awarded for sizes above Colossal
Remove ability for Ship Captain to get a Colossal Battleship for free
Only let a combiner have as many hardpoints as the component with the most hardpoints, instead of the total of all components

In summary, we had a lot of fun. Due to size scaling being so effective, we were so powerful that none could oppose us, and the mechanics intended to rein in combination abuse were too ineffective to be relevant.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on March 06, 2017, 12:53:16 AM
I like those suggestions. There is also what may perhaps strike as the first obvious solution to the EN costs in having a pilot with Ship Captain spirits simply cast Resupply on the combined mecha to restore its energy. It may give half full EN instead of full since combined mechas get half energy recoveries but the rate it goes and the time it takes to recover 50 sp a combined mecha could go on forever. Another way to ensure it eventually takes too much energy to keep going if that was what was intended is to make the energy cost per round increase each round. Eventually it is bound to end. Otherwise the energy cost becomes the goal of how much recovery is needed to keep it going forever, which isn't a problem if the intent is not to force it to end after a while but simply limit what it can accomplish by having less energy left to do stuff.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on March 06, 2017, 02:47:33 AM
Summary of suggestions:
Increase beginning and end of turn EN cost to 10 + 1 point per size over Large or to the same rate as size bonus damage dice
Reduce the number of additional damage dice awarded for sizes above Colossal
Remove ability for Ship Captain to get a Colossal Battleship for free
Only let a combiner have as many hardpoints as the component with the most hardpoints, instead of the total of all components
-Increased energy cost to (10+X+Y^2) where X is the number of rounds the combined robot has been active and Y is the number of size categories you're above medium. At C+4 that should be 74 energy at start and end of turn.
-Changed damage die for size scaling above colossal to  (2+(X/2))d6 dmg, where X is the number of sizes you're bigger than colossal, rounded down.
-Colossal battleships are staying, I'm making the other nerfs harder and I intend for massive ships to don't take that much resources to obtain. In particular the exponential energy raise on energy cost should make people pause before going for biggest size ASAP.
-Combined robot now only gets the lowest arsenal and hardpoint values among its component members.

Thanks for the report and suggestions!
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on March 06, 2017, 05:00:25 AM
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-Combined robot now only gets the lowest arsenal and hardpoint values among its component members.

I feel like that's pretty harsh as not everybody in the combined mech may be running a build speccing for arsenal and/or hardpoints/accessories. But at the same time I do like it, but more as a starting point to work off of. Afterall, a combined mecha is obviously bigger and thus has more space to be carrying stuff than an uncombined mecha. So something along the lines of exactly the nerf you proposed but with a bonus to arsenal/hardpoints based on the new size category of the combined mecha? Gaining access to new weapons and stuff is kinda a 'thing' when smaller mechs combine into bigger mechs in media, no? So it'd be something like enough points to grab like 1 extra arsenal weapon of average cost in arsenal points per size category gained? Or banking together the gains from multiple size category jumps to gain a really big arsenal weapon.

I dunno. Stuff or something........ :huh
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on March 06, 2017, 06:37:48 AM
Again, arsenal space/hardpoints represents modularity more than raw space. That's why battleships get little of it.

Gaining access to new weapons is already represented by being able to pick new upgrades which you can apply to the combined built-in weapons.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on March 06, 2017, 06:45:12 AM
I will admit not really reading too much of the HEATS ability and just glazing over it then  :tongue
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on March 07, 2017, 03:29:29 AM
Something that may be worth noting: Absolute Barrier can be picked up to four times, costing 4 upgrade points each time.
This means that to max it you must be a Super Pilot level 30.

Heats feat: While it may be obvious to some that the rules on super upgrades imply that when super robots with opposing upgrades meet, some upgrades must be chosen in the lot to be lost to the merged mecha. Others may think that they somehow coexist. Nano/Mysterious Power vs Hyperdimensional storage ; different Great/Tek/Zero upgrades ; multiple Main weapon upgrades and so on. Might be worth mentioning it to prevent nonsense. Unless it was meant to be made possible to the uber mecha.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on March 07, 2017, 12:34:29 PM
Finally got Magitech Knight posted. I ended up revamping the HP after all, after so many nerfs to Modern's damage it was unavoidable.

The Class is ridiculously wordy with a ton of upgrades too so it shotguns a ton of information at you in a hurry and it's slightly confusing since it handles a dual scale of D&D and SWR levels of play. But I hope it's not too bad. Let me know in here, I'm aware of a few things (a missing image, a repasted image, width limit screwed up a display, no grenades listed) and I just left them to focus on finalizing the top section and posting it.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on March 07, 2017, 06:39:37 PM
Something that may be worth noting: Absolute Barrier can be picked up to four times, costing 4 upgrade points each time.
This means that to max it you must be a Super Pilot level 30.
Good point, changed the upgrade cap to work in the number of picks.

Heats feat: While it may be obvious to some that the rules on super upgrades imply that when super robots with opposing upgrades meet, some upgrades must be chosen in the lot to be lost to the merged mecha. Others may think that they somehow coexist. Nano/Mysterious Power vs Hyperdimensional storage ; different Great/Tek/Zero upgrades ; multiple Main weapon upgrades and so on. Might be worth mentioning it to prevent nonsense. Unless it was meant to be made possible to the uber mecha.
Another good point, added a couple clauses about that, thanks!
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on March 08, 2017, 01:55:47 PM
SorO_Lost and Anomander: Is it alright with you guys if we add your content to the wiki? I got the feeling that you were OK with it, but it'd be nice to have direct confirmation.

Similarly, Oslecamo: Is it alright if we include your other content (such as it is related to SRWd20) like Pure Crafting, and Moon Vanguard, that aren't specifically part of SRWd20?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: nijineko on March 08, 2017, 02:17:49 PM
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No robots powered up by souls or angst here!

You just reminded me of the Voodoo engine from Car Wars.... ^^
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on March 08, 2017, 02:20:06 PM
SorO_Lost and Anomander: Is it alright with you guys if we add your content to the wiki? I got the feeling that you were OK with it, but it'd be nice to have direct confirmation.
I'm perfectly fine with it, if you have some tweaks you'd want to make feel free to share them through.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on March 08, 2017, 03:11:13 PM
Quote from: CKirk
SorO_Lost and Anomander: Is it alright with you guys if we add your content to the wiki? I got the feeling that you were OK with it, but it'd be nice to have direct confirmation.
Sure! Speaking of the thing now reminds me I've got to update it to fit the changes to the energy barriers. It should otherwise be fairly up to date.

Quote from: Soro
I wonder if Anomander's Mecha Engineer had the same problem. For me I took it as general acceptance, but it's not in the index and Osl specifically wrote a replacement class for it. *shrugs*
I had asked like you before working on it and got approved to proceed, so I did. After that I don't think he really checked it to see if it was balanced or anything but from the feedback and comments I got here and over PMs everyone so far seems to like it. I nerfed it some since then after noticing stuff here and there. Don't fret about the index. He usually reserves his own stuff for the index of special homebrew projects such as these and that's perfectly fine. As for the Support Staff, I do not see it as a replacement class. It is as close to the Mecha engineer in concept as the Real Pilot is to the Ship Captain. They do similar stuff here and there but are still very different. I like the Support Staff very much. A multiclass Support Staff/Mecha Engineer would be pretty neat.

Also, I've barely perused your Magitek class but I'll try to find some time to review it. I'm kind of biased against gishes since they are already too easy to optimize and felt like a super gish concept but I'll see later when I can.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on March 08, 2017, 07:21:22 PM
Similarly, Oslecamo: Is it alright if we include your other content (such as it is related to SRWd20) like Pure Crafting, and Moon Vanguard, that aren't specifically part of SRWd20?

Sounds good.

I'm kind of biased against gishes since they are already too easy to optimize and felt like a super gish concept but I'll see later when I can.
It's actually the ultimate super caster.

Spells up to 9th level from any list. All the spells. Because it includes powers so just pick Psychic Reformation and grab what you need when you need it. Also infusions. And uses a custom point system instead of spell slots which means you can throw a lot more top level spells per day than an actual sorceror.

There's weapons in it I believe, some of which get to fully ignore armor and others fully ignore barriers. But there's no point because most spells already ignore armor and barriers. Doubly so when you can spend the weapon resources into passive upgrades instead. Like hundreds of HP at low level and thousands of HP at high level.

And more spirits known and spirit points than any other class because why not.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on March 08, 2017, 08:51:06 PM
They do similar stuff here and there but are still very different. I like the Support Staff very much. A multiclass Support Staff/Mecha Engineer would be pretty neat.
Well there you go, now is a good time to look into updating if Ckirk is going to be kind enough to port it over.

Also, I've barely perused your Magitek class but I'll try to find some time to review it. I'm kind of biased against gishes since they are already too easy to optimize and felt like a super gish concept but I'll see later when I can.
It is a gish. :D

Here is the most recent updated copy. (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=17848.msg321649#msg321649)
I get a lot of feed back, because I solicit for it, to help out with things I missed but I'm always welcome to more.



It's actually the ultimate super caster.
No, it's not your class (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=13491.0).

And uses a custom point system instead of spell slots which means you can throw a lot more top level spells per day than an actual sorceror.
Actually it has 4 slots of each level which is less than a Specialist Wizard, a Cleric, or a Sorcerer.

Also let's say you started with a 14 in Charisma (gish remember), picked up a +4 Inherent Bonus from a Tome, a Cloak of Charisma +6, and listened to SorO and optimized your Charisma with those all powerful Spells. Thus you have Persisted Snowsong, Greater Visage of the Deity, & Devil's Ego all running on top of a Righteous Aura. You have 40 Charisma or 4/4/4/3/3/3/3/2/2 Bonus Slots and a Sorcerer would have 10/10/10/9/9/9/9/8/8 per day. Awesome!

On the Magitech side since casting a Spell consumes 1 Hybrid Point per level you need 184 points to cast them all and another 128 for those Bonus Spells for 312 total per day. Well a Knight with the same Charisma is only going to have 140 points and hell it's not even enough to cast all of the base slots to begin with either. And using your mech, empowering your weapon damage, and using your Corruption Armament consume those points to so you have to share that resource with your gishing.

So I guess you won't be casting near as much as Osl thinks ;)

There's weapons in it I believe, some of which get to fully ignore armor and others fully ignore barriers.
Corruption Damage does, at the twentieth level 20 points of damage ignore DR when you're throwing Hybrid Points at an Encounter, how many you ask? 10 points per round, more than you pay for a 9th level spell. Hey, do you think Rending ever ignores more than that? Oh, we both know it does ;)

And yes Ion ignores barriers, it directly drains Energy from mechs just like your barrier ignore energy draining grenades do.

But there's no point because most spells already ignore armor and barriers. Doubly so when you can spend the weapon resources into passive upgrades instead. Like hundreds of HP at low level and thousands of HP at high level.
1,000hp? You'd need like 90 Constitution to pull that off, I think I could manage to come up with an example with that much if I used your Improved Monster Classes through.

And more spirits known and spirit points than any other class because why not.
It gets +10/level but doesn't have access to Soul of the Machine, Tek Soul, or Arsenal.

So for example, at the 20th level the Magitech Knight has 200 Spirit. At the 20th level a Super Pilot has 160, then another 55 for Machine, another +20~40 from Tek, and another +55 from Platinium Plating for 290 even if it were Colossal putting it ninety points ahead of the Knight. Also the Knight has no inherent method to regenerate spirit during combat, with Spirit Regen it caps at +10/rnd. Same Super Pilot gains +15/rnd, or +25 with Spirit Regen, or +29 if it took Miniaturization as well. If you want to bitch the Magitech's points are too high, you really need to fix your own homebrew first since I scaled off of it and came up with 64% of your Super Pilot's maximum points and 34% of your Super Pilot's possible regeneration.

Point of advice, if you want to try claiming the SRW-Knight is too strong. You, by extension, are complaining about your homebrew being too powerful. And I'm not going to disagree with you either.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on March 08, 2017, 09:34:27 PM
Uh, you're still taking from every spell/power list in the system. Replicating the biggest issue with the StP erudite, removing any element of effort to do so, and actually having a class chassis that isn't spun glass. That's not a good position to argue for anything from.

Somewhat related, but the damage calculation for that 20th level ability seems like it should have an application beyond spell levels. :T
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on March 08, 2017, 10:05:16 PM
Uh, you're still taking from every spell/power list in the system. Replicating the biggest issue with the StP erudite, removing any element of effort to do so, and actually having a class chassis that isn't spun glass. That's not a good position to argue for anything from.

Word.

On the other hand the author can't even tell the difference between DR(damage reduction) and armor, which normally applies to AC but is completely ignored by touch attacks. Like, say, its missile versions when combined with the laser painter. But again, every spell, power and infusion ever at the tip of its fingers.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on March 09, 2017, 12:42:51 AM
Somewhat related, but the damage calculation for that 20th level ability seems like it should have an application beyond spell levels. :T
Not really, Dalamar's Lightning Lance hits for 3d6+(1d6*cl) and it gains a second and third shot as well for a single 4th. Mystic Lash can hit for up to 4d6 per round as a cast and forget, sort of like Extended Creeping Cold hitting for 200d6 as a DoTer that you only have to pay for once. You can also get into things like Storm Touch which a Wizard gets at level 9 and it deals 9d6 just like the Armament, except the Wizard can make nine touch attacks with it per casting. Hell Osl's Arcane Pilot can cast Lightning Leap to teleport away from his enemy and deal 105d6 damage using a 5th level Slot at higher levels. Did you know Lightning Ring, an 8th level Spell, deals 20d6 to a mobile area for several rounds? It's high damage and a DoT all in one.

Corruption Armament deals it's damage faster than a DoT or multi hitter but you have to pay it's cost every round. And the reason you'll end up using it over say Storm Touch, is because the Magitech Knight runs a full three levels behind full casters, they don't even get Storm Touch until level 12, by level 13 a Wizard moves to Scalding for 13d6 per Touch and 169d6 damage per casting. Which brings us to your next point.

Uh, you're still taking from every spell/power list in the system. Replicating the biggest issue with the StP erudite, removing any element of effort to do so, and actually having a class chassis that isn't spun glass. That's not a good position to argue for anything from.
The StP Erudite can learn every single Spell in the game and chooses to make up his limited daily list as he needs the Spells which makes him highly versatile. A Wizard needs 15 minutes and left over open slots to keep up to what the Erudite can do in one round. The Magitech Knight on the other hand knows up to 4 Spells of each level, and it doesn't even get to swap bad choices like a Sorcerer does which expressly nerfs Spellpact trading, the method that Sorcerers use to cast any Spell in the game they want (what did you think they can't?).

Erudite also get full Psion progression, not three levels late. And when we move to my homebrew in a D&D setting, the Magitech Knight also doesn't even get 7ths, 8ths, or 9ths. And finally the Erudite has no less than six methods to generate infinite loops of Power Points directly resulting in infinite Powers during the day whereas the Knight has problems even being able to cast their less than any full-caster's slots per day. Less known, no spell adaption, slower rate of obtaining new slots, and less slots per day than any other full caster let alone the infinite guy. Please don't be an Osl, I like useful feed back. Like not knowing Supplement spell damage rates and how the Knight stacks up to them is at least something that gets me to recheck some numbers if only to explain areas of information you don't know. But StP Erudites? Really?

On the other hand the author can't even tell the difference between DR(damage reduction) and armor, which normally applies to AC but is completely ignored by touch attacks.
I'm not even sure what you're saying. Damage Reduction doesn't apply to AC.

If you're trying to say Touch Attacks ignore Armor Bonuses to AC, and Fire Damage ignores DR, yes they do. Not sure what your point is there through. For example, you can fire less Missiles per option in my homebrew than you can use any given selection of Arsenal in yours, mine offers a Reflex Save for half and yours gives bonuses to attack rolls and debuffs their AC and prevents them from moving all at once. Mine also offers only 5 points of resistance at the cost of 2 upgrade points and is a 4th level or higher option, you offers 10 points of resistance, and Fortification, for one point, literally half the cost for double the bonus and extras. Also your Barrier, as I've told you before, is so poorly worded that unless a Knight directly attacks a SWR-mech, the barrier fully negates the damage at no energy cost. I think form here on out I'm just going to apply your comments to it's pure D&D side. It's not even worth reading your comments if the pretense involves SWR-based games.

And on that, yeah it can pick a lot of missiles for lower DC'ed fireballs. Totally intentional. As noted in this thread during creation they damage scales to less than everything else if they make their Save DC, or slightly more if they don't. However Fire Resistance, and immunity, is pretty common so you may want to pick up several types in case some of those options turn out to be worthless. You're stuck with your selections until next level too, not next Encounter. But if you like, you could run some numbers and try to prove how the missiles simply deal too much compared to, oh idk. Explosive Runes? Raging Barbarians? Oooh I know, Dragonfire Adepts. I just made a post about how their main thing isn't damage but damn if it isn't an area based fire attack that can be used every single round instead of twice per Encounter. I'd welcome the input and consider it.

Also, you gave people Hardness for wearing Adamantine Armor, I'm not sure you're even qualified to discuss Damage Reduction with anyone, let alone attempt to claim someone else doesn't know what they are talking about.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on March 09, 2017, 09:18:28 AM
Somewhat related, but the damage calculation for that 20th level ability seems like it should have an application beyond spell levels. :T
Not really, Dalamar's Lightning Lance hits for 3d6+(1d6*cl) and it gains a second and third shot as well for a single 4th. Mystic Lash can hit for up to 4d6 per round as a cast and forget, sort of like Extended Creeping Cold hitting for 200d6 as a DoTer that you only have to pay for once. You can also get into things like Storm Touch which a Wizard gets at level 9 and it deals 9d6 just like the Armament, except the Wizard can make nine touch attacks with it per casting. Hell Osl's Arcane Pilot can cast Lightning Leap to teleport away from his enemy and deal 105d6 damage using a 5th level Slot at higher levels. Did you know Lightning Ring, an 8th level Spell, deals 20d6 to a mobile area for several rounds? It's high damage and a DoT all in one.

Corruption Armament deals it's damage faster than a DoT or multi hitter but you have to pay it's cost every round. And the reason you'll end up using it over say Storm Touch, is because the Magitech Knight runs a full three levels behind full casters, they don't even get Storm Touch until level 12, by level 13 a Wizard moves to Scalding for 13d6 per Touch and 169d6 damage per casting. Which brings us to your next point.

I mean that it deals damage based on remaining spell levels but does nothing to psions etc.

Quote
Uh, you're still taking from every spell/power list in the system. Replicating the biggest issue with the StP erudite, removing any element of effort to do so, and actually having a class chassis that isn't spun glass. That's not a good position to argue for anything from.
The StP Erudite can learn every single Spell in the game and chooses to make up his limited daily list as he needs the Spells which makes him highly versatile. A Wizard needs 15 minutes and left over open slots to keep up to what the Erudite can do in one round. The Magitech Knight on the other hand knows up to 4 Spells of each level, and it doesn't even get to swap bad choices like a Sorcerer does which expressly nerfs Spellpact trading, the method that Sorcerers use to cast any Spell in the game they want (what did you think they can't?).

Erudite also get full Psion progression, not three levels late. And when we move to my homebrew in a D&D setting, the Magitech Knight also doesn't even get 7ths, 8ths, or 9ths. And finally the Erudite has no less than six methods to generate infinite loops of Power Points directly resulting in infinite Powers during the day whereas the Knight has problems even being able to cast their less than any full-caster's slots per day. Less known, no spell adaption, slower rate of obtaining new slots, and less slots per day than any other full caster let alone the infinite guy. Please don't be an Osl, I like useful feed back. Like not knowing Supplement spell damage rates and how the Knight stacks up to them is at least something that gets me to recheck some numbers if only to explain areas of information you don't know. But StP Erudites? Really?

Because "more limited spells but a wider pool to choose from" has ever balanced itself? At least be reasonable about this and don't jump straight to infinite power loops and damage dice. That's ignoring the problem. So's trying to get feedback on having two distinct spellcasting progressions at once, one of which appears to be completely identical up until high levels.

Hell, getting unique paladin/ranger spells before them is odd.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on March 09, 2017, 02:00:36 PM
I mean that it deals damage based on remaining spell levels but does nothing to psions etc.
If you're talking about how the Knight can't Augment Psionic Powers and thus won't be using those for damage, yeah I know. I figured free Augmentation would be a little much. Even if I attempted to add a clause of must deal damage, I'm sure it can still be abused.

Because "more limited spells but a wider pool to choose from" has ever balanced itself? At least be reasonable about this and don't jump straight to infinite power loops and damage dice. That's ignoring the problem. So's trying to get feedback on having two distinct spellcasting progressions at once, one of which appears to be completely identical up until high levels.
I feel it's not my personal job to balance the sum of D&D using a base class, I will not spend hours banning stuff like Planar Binding (all arcanes) or Planar Binding (all divines) nor simultaneously do I see a reason to limit you to one or the other when by merit you'll have either one and they both accomplish the same end result. Group balance and their level of play are up to them and for as egotistical as I am, I'm not going to tell them how to play D&D.

I will however toss support to the worthless Artificer Class and create one of the very few psionic-acknowleding homebrews in the entire forum. And instead of simply letting you use WotC printed materials like Staffs, Stones, Rainbow Servant, Anyspell, Arcane Disciple, Mental Pinnacle, Spellpacts, Dragonpacts, PrC Bards, Silver mancers, Childs of Eberron, Sword of the Arcane Order, Archivists, Shadowcraft Mage, etc. which because they have an inherent cost (like a dozen gold pieces) you feel like you should choose powerful spells to make up for it I'd rather see if the freedom of choice let's you choose what you like instead of what's mechanically superior. Maybe it works like an all you can eat buffet, eating dessert is first is a great idea but it always seems people try other things.

Hell, getting unique paladin/ranger spells before them is odd.
Not really, Silver Pyromancer already offers all of the Paaldin Spells to the arcanes and the Paladin can use Sword of the Arcane Order to access all of the Wizard/Sorcerer Spells. Clerics can also access the Paladin List through the PrC Paladin (through much of the last is already cleric only), and Archivist can simply pick them up anyway. Ranger is about the most exclusive list in the game outside of certain splat like the Wu Gen through, at least for Arcanes. You need a middle man like a PrC Ranger FvS to pass them.

The good news is I kept level digging off the menu, like the StP Erudite can pick up Haste as a 1st level Spell instead of 3rd. It's something things like the Archivist & Cleric can do as well as well through Anyspell.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on March 10, 2017, 11:05:09 PM
Added Soul Crusher new super robot upgrade line.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on March 10, 2017, 11:10:45 PM
Added Soul Crusher new super robot upgrade line.

That seems too effective a way to remove spirits from play. Take two people who've invested in it with AoE attacks: reduce every enemy's spirit to effectively nil immediately. Not that spirits really work well for drawn-out fights anyway, but that's one big "get first strike" bonus.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on March 11, 2017, 01:54:04 AM
Halved the spirit lost for area/multi-target attacks and made it only useable 1/round.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on March 13, 2017, 09:51:46 PM
Zero State-Any effect that would recover your (and anybody else inside your mecha) Energy/HP/Spirit only recovers half as much even while outside the mecha and you cannot have the Heats feat.

 While more than one copy remains neither can recover Energy/Ammo/Spirit Points/HP(nor anybody else inside a mecha copy), use abilities that cost exp or other limited uses abilities/resources by any means, including copy pilots that exit the mecha.
Those two sections contradict each other.

But you might be on to something. Half-rate recovery is a very nice addition, both penalizing usage and allowing the clones to function outside of combat like you have started is intentional (since apparently any form of flight depletes energy). Maybe instead of total prevention, restorative effects are scaled based on the number of clones or w/e.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on March 13, 2017, 10:41:14 PM
(http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/578/024/a8c.jpg)
(click to show/hide)
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on March 14, 2017, 12:28:31 AM
Zero divided by two is still zero. There is no contradiction, simply half recovery when there are no clones which drops to zero recovery when there are clones. Already discussed and implemented following a suggestion from Anomander.
Ahh so this is another just can't understand your homebrew deal, ok.

Also we've been over this Osl on the last page. Everything I wrote in the Magitech Knight is lower than your stuff, and that's including the mods that upscale it to your stuff's levels. Like that +32 Str is only +16 damage, or +24 with a Two-Hander. I mean there is some bonuses to attack (melee only, not nearly everything like yours), but heck you already offer attack bonuses on your weapons, in your upgrades, and on your mecha-equipment which all stacks together anyway so meh. Besides, have you even fucking looked at your upgrades?

Main Weapon:Choose one of your in built weapons. It now deals damage as if it was one size category larger and adds 1.5 the relevant stat mod to damage instead of just once (if it is a heavy weapon, 2.5 the relevant stat). You can only have one Main Weapon, but you can pick this option two more times, each one increasing the damage die another size. The second one the Crit threat increases by 1 and the third the crit multiplier increases by 1.
Adds anywhere from 3d6 (that's +10.5) to 5d6 (that's +17.5) dice and additionally increases the ability score bonus by +50%. At a very low balled 18 Str that's a +12.5 increase minimum or the equivalent of a +24 increase to Strength (or Dexterity).

Mighty:Once per round as a free action you can expend 5 energy to make all of the super robot's weapons deal +2 damage for 1 round. In the case of the main weapon it deals +4 damage instead. In the case of combined paired weapons, it deals +8 damage instead. Picking this option multiple times allows you to spend extra energy to get a bigger bonus.
You only need to expend 20 energy for a +16 bonus to damage, also 11 upgrades in this gives +44 damage, or the equivalent of a +88 Strength (or Dexterity)

Paired:[/i] Choose two built-in non-heavy melee weapons of the super robot. They gain the Twin-Linked property.
Quote
Twin-linked:if you have two weapons of the same kind with this property you can attack with both as a standard action whitout penalties or at the end of a charge (if they're melee weapons in the case of a charge). If you perform the full attack action with them, instead of your regular routine you can fire each weapon once for each regular attack you would get with a single weapon. A set of weapons with both the Heavy and Twin-Linked property can both be fired as a single fullround action, all the other Heavy restrictions apply. If you use a Spirit that would benefit only your next attack like Strike or Valor, you may use a pair of Twin-linked weapons and both attacks gain the Spirit's benefit.
And this is just plain doubles your damage. Same low balled 18 score on a Built-In, at level 1, gives a potential of +1d10+4 (9.5) damage, or the equivalent of a +18 Strength (or Dexterity) and at higher levels this is just plain BS.
And the thing is you can stack Main Weapon with Mighty. Hell at level 7 you can Link two Built-Ins together, Mighty them both at once because Mighty upscale all weapons simultaneously, and apply Main Weapon to one side. You are lower end, IE no Growth applied, is 1d10+3d6+22/1d10+20 & 1d10+3d6+22/1d10+20 for 127 damage at level 7. And that's without even using the other broken mechanics of say, x7 Linked Steel Knifes under Mightyx4-only which deals 315 damage that we're just going to ignore for now anyway.

The 7th level Magitech Knight deals 5d6/5d6 (35, 27% of yours) with her guns/beams, 6d6/6d6 (42, 33% of yours) with her missiles assuming the target fails their save, and 7d6/7d6 (49, 38% of yours) with her Corruption Armament which sensationally costs her spelllcasting to use. She only gets +16 to Str (not 32) so @18 and her highest damaging melee weapon (a 2d6er instead of your 3d10er) she only deals 2d6+12/2d6+12 (38, 29% of yours). I feel it's painfully fucking obvious why I added a damage bonus for SRW games, which is only +3 damage at that level (ie corruption deals 31% of yours!), and then I still had to add Dex to damage on the guns (and guns only, no x2.5 str mods to everything like your stuff).

Seriously dude, we can continue this all day. And I mean it, it's literately my goal to for the SEW-enhanced content to remain slightly below yours, so if you were intelligent enough to actually crunch values and find something that dealt more then I could patch it so it didn't and I'd thank you for it which is honestly the closest is thing you'll even come to "winning" anything in here; me nerfing things for balance which has a side effect of invalidating a previous argument making me "right" once again. :)

You seem to forget, I'm solicitation for advice, not wishing people to shut up like you.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on March 14, 2017, 02:39:04 AM
Less insults, please? May as well just blank all posts otherwise. :T
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on March 14, 2017, 11:54:06 PM
Spiral Spirit is pretty neat and I can easily imagine what inspired it.
The barrier upgrade lists that it can be picked starting at level 4, but requires 4 upgrade points per pick. The limit to upgrade points per upgrade is 1+Super Pilot Level/2, which means that, just like the Great/Tek/Zero upgrades, you can actually only pick it starting at Super Pilot Level 6. And since each pick after that one costs an extra 4 points, the second require SPL 14, the third pick requires SPL 22 and the fourth pick requires SPL 30.
Similarly, Sentient+Imprint requires 6 points which means SPL 10.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on March 15, 2017, 12:39:14 AM
That's how older versions worked, but right now the base cap on super robot upgrades is based on how many times you pick an option, not how many points you invested on it. This gives me a déjà vu feeling.

Something that may be worth noting: Absolute Barrier can be picked up to four times, costing 4 upgrade points each time.
This means that to max it you must be a Super Pilot level 30.
Good point, changed the upgrade cap to work in the number of picks.

Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on March 15, 2017, 02:18:08 AM
Ah, my bad. I thought only the level 4 requirement had been added. I thought you meant that the upgrade cap per pick was for that upgrade alone, not a change to upgrades in general. Sounds good.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on March 15, 2017, 03:11:55 AM
I gotta say, Salary Worker making you unable to read, write, or even speak common is, like, what? Were you raised by Ewoks? There's no way you can fall that far under the bar in the super-giant-mecha-space-future unless you were literally raised in an environment that completely lacked technology and anyone who knew of it.

Honestly, it could have just been kept being named "Savage" even in the SRW setting. If you're an industrial worker of any kind, you're not getting anywhere without being able to speak or read. I can't even imagine a scenario where it would work.

And if anything, you're only a Pilot class cause you legit stole a mecha from some stranded, hapless soul.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on March 15, 2017, 03:35:27 AM
I gotta say, Salary Worker making you unable to read, write, or even speak common is, like, what? Were you raised by Ewoks? There's no way you can fall that far under the bar in the super-giant-mecha-space-future unless you were literally raised in an environment that completely lacked technology and anyone who knew of it.

Honestly, it could have just been kept being named "Savage" even in the SRW setting. If you're an industrial worker of any kind, you're not getting anywhere without being able to speak or read. I can't even imagine a scenario where it would work.
Two words: "child labor". Or "child soldier". No time go to school and don't need any fancy writing/reading/common language to to press the right buttons at the right time. Also "raised/grown in a laboratory" would fit too.

Anyway Salary Worker grants a minimum of 4 extra skill points at first level so you can easily afford to buy that stuff back right away. I could make it a separate flaw, but being unable to read/write isn't that much of a disadvantage for pratical purposes, let alone if stuff like voice commands and audio instructions are available.

And if anything, you're only a Pilot class cause you legit stole a mecha from some stranded, hapless soul.
Well yes that's how one usually starts, but then you need to afford fuel and replacement parts and maintenance and ice cream and movies and paying for your little sister's education so they aren't forced to risk their life too. And once you show your piloting skillz, the organization you stole your mecha from will happilly start writing you paychecks, even if only to collect that juicy experimental data.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on March 15, 2017, 03:49:20 AM
I'd say, then, that Child Soldier makes a better name than Salary Worker. Not to mention that kid was probably kidnapped or orphaned and is certainly not earning a salary lol.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on March 15, 2017, 03:55:16 AM
Pilot traits : Salary Worker
The essence that can be harvested is difficult to picture. How is it carried around and such? Because if slain and brought down recovering that essence is essentially akin to recovering your lost gear, though unlock recovering lost gear, you can just equip it again. You have to spend the worth of the essence into med therapies, which may take more/less time to accomplish than simply equipping the stuff again.
Say, you could just take a move action to give a cheque to your pal and say "Here's your pay for the med therapies I'll get eventually" and BAM instant recovery.

It is very neat and I am quite tempted to take it if only to be rid of the need to shop items (plus the concept of having a character using mostly only the homebrewed stuff) though the half-golem template requires money to be acquired unless the trait is be acquired after those one-shot investments. Oh well, not important. The description also implies that all money is spent on silly stuff/given away, but you're supposed to still be able to use gear under 10gp. If all money is forfeit the character cannot pay for his own food/lodgings, and technically cannot pay the therapist's med bill to recover his abilities either since he's giving away all his money before he can save up enough to pay the bill.

The trait provides no means to increase the modifier of a skill, by the way (unless I missed it). The extra *kill ranks are also limited by your level and you no longer have access to the typical masterwork tool. Nor any that is more or less needed to use a skill. Just in case that was all well intended.

Also, the trait denies using non-magic stuff worth more than 10 GB, and the abilities that allow the emulation of magic items do not cover expansive non-magical items, such as pure crafting goods. So a pilot with an ability such as the Burning Justice tactical feat that uses a pure weapon/thing in your possession cannot be used. That one seems to have actually get its own pure item as well rather than requiring one owned, so nvm. Could be an issue for other stuff.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on March 15, 2017, 04:51:23 AM
I'd say, then, that Child Soldier makes a better name than Salary Worker. Not to mention that kid was probably kidnapped or orphaned and is certainly not earning a salary lol.
Done.

Pilot traits : Salary Worker
The essence that can be harvested is difficult to picture. How is it carried around and such?
Messy organ harvesting. Heart and brain are particularly valuable.

Because if slain and brought down recovering that essence is essentially akin to recovering your lost gear, though unlock recovering lost gear, you can just equip it again. You have to spend the worth of the essence into med therapies, which may take more/less time to accomplish than simply equipping the stuff again.
Say, you could just take a move action to give a cheque to your pal and say "Here's your pay for the med therapies I'll get eventually" and BAM instant recovery.
Added a 1d12 day delay for the medical treatment.
Do notice that most Neo Skills can't be disarmed/sundered/lost/stolen/etc while you're still breathing unlike normal gear.

It is very neat and I am quite tempted to take it if only to be rid of the need to shop items (plus the concept of having a character using mostly only the homebrewed stuff)
That's like 90% of my motivation for this. Really want to update the old NPCs and write new ones, but handing out magic items is a major hassle. :P

The description also implies that all money is spent on silly stuff/given away, but you're supposed to still be able to use gear under 10gp. If all money is forfeit the character cannot pay for his own food/lodgings, and technically cannot pay the therapist's med bill to recover his abilities either since he's giving away all his money before he can save up enough to pay the bill.
Added clause about that.

The trait provides no means to increase the modifier of a skill, by the way (unless I missed it). The extra *kill ranks are also limited by your level and you no longer have access to the typical masterwork tool. Nor any that is more or less needed to use a skill. Just in case that was all well intended.
You can boost your ability scores and get specific magic items. But yes, getting rid of "and now to buy a dozen different masterwork tools and other assorted skill boosters" is intended.

Also, the trait denies using non-magic stuff worth more than 10 GB, and the abilities that allow the emulation of magic items do not cover expansive non-magical items, such as pure crafting goods. So a pilot with an ability such as the Burning Justice tactical feat that uses a pure weapon/thing in your possession cannot be used. That one seems to have actually get its own pure item as well rather than requiring one owned, so nvm. Could be an issue for other stuff.
Added Pattern line of items for that.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on March 15, 2017, 05:00:23 AM
What if you need expensive material components for spells, if you cast spells?

Ask the party?  :D
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on March 15, 2017, 08:38:04 AM
You could use other party's bling on expensive spells to help them, like diamonds for ressurection.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on March 16, 2017, 03:43:50 AM
Looking at the Gun Maniac & Martial Machine's tactical feat on-foot fighting option (the later based on what our plans were), the racial Android integrated weapon, the feat to have it gain an accessory and similar on-foot benefits ... and then I consider the notion that the setting is built around the idea that if you are fighting on foot you're screwed and deserve any doom dropping on the character, it seems that trying to make fighting on foot interesting is going against the point. It is just a bit odd.

Also, could there be an option for Einst Queens to forfeit the ability to make einst drones? The infiltrator could have no drones and the Adaptative Queen only have the one used to get piloted around. Mostly for an Einst Queen/Real Pilot to only have the organic mecha and stop bothering about making rabid minions. In the spirit making it possible to play an einst queen closer to Alfimi, who doesn't seem to have made any drones (I could be mistaken), which may also make an Einst Queen PC better accepted by a good-aligned party as it wouldn't have to explain why she's "giving birth" to monsters that follow her around.
EQ/Ship Captain and similar multiclassings could be limited to one as well, I suppose.
The infested mecha would just be rebuilt as normal and the EQ would then infect it. For stuff like the infested ship some "work time" could be spent to evolve the drone base into a different kind.
As for the trade off, maybe an extra spirit point per level to be on par with the real pilot and perhaps an extra bioweapon of the max level available to that one drone/infested mecha. Or something else entirely. Or even nothing and have it simply be a willing penalty.

I recall now that since there's been some extra arsenal accessories added in, they should technically also have a Born to Fight overcharged effect.

Turbo Operational Universal High Overcharge Use: When it says you can learn maneuvers "in place of your regular ones", does it mean you can retrain already learned maneuvers into the new ones? If so you'll probably want to mention they have to be of at most the same maneuver level since Real/Super pilots cannot normally retrain maneuvers like the other martial base classes. Otherwise it may mean that you only get to learn maneuvers from the new discipline and trade it for a discipline it has access to without losing the maneuvers already learned. Or it may also mean that you simply get another martial discipline to pick maneuvers from and the new maneuvers can be taken from it as well.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on March 16, 2017, 04:20:38 AM
Looking at the Gun Maniac & Martial Machine's tactical feat on-foot fighting option (the later based on what our plans were), the racial Android integrated weapon, the feat to have it gain an accessory and similar on-foot benefits ... and then I consider the notion that the setting is built around the idea that if you are fighting on foot you're screwed and deserve any doom dropping on the character, it seems that trying to make fighting on foot interesting is going against the point. It is just a bit odd.
The point is giving a last-ditch option in case you're caught outside your mecha. Finish off an enemy weakened machine, take out mooks, etc.

Also, could there be an option for Einst Queens to forfeit the ability to make einst drones? The infiltrator could have no drones and the Adaptative Queen only have the one used to get piloted around. Mostly for an Einst Queen/Real Pilot to only have the organic mecha and stop bothering about making rabid minions. In the spirit making it possible to play an einst queen closer to Alfimi, who doesn't seem to have made any drones (I could be mistaken),
(http://imgur.com/Al9cEEO.png)
Einsteisens are Alfimi's personal pets created in the image of the Alteisen.
She makes them by the hundreds in OG2.

which may also make an Einst Queen PC better accepted by a good-aligned party as it wouldn't have to explain why she's "giving birth" to monsters that follow her around.
Well, the other good pilots probably have connections with the shady corporation/ruthless government/crazy scientist. :P

EQ/Ship Captain and similar multiclassings could be limited to one as well, I suppose.
The infested mecha would just be rebuilt as normal and the EQ would then infect it. For stuff like the infested ship some "work time" could be spent to evolve the drone base into a different kind.

I believe that would be best suited by a "converted einst" prc that drops the drones like Excellen did. But before that there's a bunch of stuff that really needs to be updated on the einst queen since they're lagging quite behind on basic options right now.

Or even nothing and have it simply be a willing penalty.
Well, nothing forcing an Einst Queen to make drones if she doesn't want to. :p

I recall now that since there's been some extra arsenal accessories added in, they should technically also have a Born to Fight overcharged effect.
More stuff for the waiting list.

Turbo Operational Universal High Overcharge Use: When it says you can learn maneuvers "in place of your regular ones", does it mean you can retrain already learned maneuvers into the new ones? If so you'll probably want to mention they have to be of at most the same maneuver level since Real/Super pilots cannot normally retrain maneuvers like the other martial base classes. Otherwise it may mean that you only get to learn maneuvers from the new discipline and trade it for a discipline it has access to without losing the maneuvers already learned. Or it may also mean that you simply get another martial discipline to pick maneuvers from and the new maneuvers can be taken from it as well.
Last one.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on March 23, 2017, 02:51:03 AM
While transferring Super Pilot to the wiki, we ran into a few questions:

"Zero Speed-The movement speeds of everyody with not enough resistance/immunity to fully block the damage from your aura. You can pick this option multiple times, each extra one increases the movement reduction multiplier by 1."
This doesn't actually say what it does to the movement speeds. I assume it's meant to halve them? Additionally, the second sentence says it increases the multiplier, which is not correct terminology if additional picks further reduce speed (if it's intended to be 'divide by two', then divisor would be the correct term.

Both Mighty and Great One (Great Power) say they quad the damage bonus for paired weapons, but not other heavy weapons. Is this intentional?

"Zero Attack: After you perform a martial strike, you can make your targets (if any) lose HP equal to twice your current stance ignoring all defenses. You can pick this multiple times, each extra one increases the HP loss multiplier by 1."
This doesn't say what function of your stance it uses. I assume level, but this should be clarified.


And lastly, this is just some typo's that were noticeable:
"Super Pilots individuals that ride machines that are usually as  highly spirited as themselves. They charge right ahead and perform flashy attacks, facing the enemy directly and whitout fear."
Should be 'Super Pilots are individuals that...' and '...without fear.'

Also we noticed something in Ship Captain. Is it intentional that Warp Speed (from Heaven Sailing Sky Dragon) is not disabled by this flaw? Because I have this hilarious image of a ship rolling along the ground at several times the speed of sound.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on March 23, 2017, 04:01:29 AM
While transferring Super Pilot to the wiki, we ran into a few questions:

"Zero Speed-The movement speeds of everyody with not enough resistance/immunity to fully block the damage from your aura. You can pick this option multiple times, each extra one increases the movement reduction multiplier by 1."
This doesn't actually say what it does to the movement speeds. I assume it's meant to halve them? Additionally, the second sentence says it increases the multiplier, which is not correct terminology if additional picks further reduce speed (if it's intended to be 'divide by two', then divisor would be the correct term.
Yes, halved. Fixed.

Both Mighty and Great One (Great Power) say they quad the damage bonus for paired weapons, but not other heavy weapons. Is this intentional?
Yes.

"Zero Attack: After you perform a martial strike, you can make your targets (if any) lose HP equal to twice your current stance ignoring all defenses. You can pick this multiple times, each extra one increases the HP loss multiplier by 1."
This doesn't say what function of your stance it uses. I assume level, but this should be clarified.
Derp, stance level yes.

And lastly, this is just some typo's that were noticeable:
"Super Pilots individuals that ride machines that are usually as  highly spirited as themselves. They charge right ahead and perform flashy attacks, facing the enemy directly and whitout fear."
Should be 'Super Pilots are individuals that...' and '...without fear.'
Fixed.

Also we noticed something in Ship Captain. Is it intentional that Warp Speed (from Heaven Sailing Sky Dragon) is not disabled by this flaw? Because I have this hilarious image of a ship rolling along the ground at several times the speed of sound.
120% intended.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on March 23, 2017, 05:39:10 AM
Do a barrel roll!
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on March 24, 2017, 12:46:27 AM
Sounds good! Here's more.

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Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on March 26, 2017, 02:13:40 AM
Rev arsenal options: There seems to be no way to deactivate/reactivate them without a barrier. Once you put them on they are constantly active.
Added swift/move action to turn on or off.

Tactical Hologram: Disguise Self and Blur. Being permanently blurred kind of ruins the disguise. Anyone who knows about this accessory would highly suspect anything blurry as probably disguised.
Made it one effect or other.

The special weapons Breaker Chaff and Chaff Smoke replicate the Chaff Launcher effect, but its name is actually Chaff Grenade.
Fixed.

Gun Maniac
I played a Gunner in PSO2 and the skilltree makes it more feel like once you go the twin-machinegun path, you're invested enough to not care much about any other gun types. I don't see the mechanic that makes it interesting to swap in battle if not to get a different kind of twin-machinegun aligned to fight a given element.
Kids nowadays. Back on the original Phantasy Star online we didn't have any fancy skill trees to specialize in a single weapon type and had to switch them all the time. And we liked it! :shakefist

So artistic license on my part.

Riffles seem to get almost all the boosts while twin guns get almost all the counters. Twin-gun getting most counters make sort of make sense though.

Aerial Shooting: Sounds like the regular jump n' shoot. Coulda been a boost. Like Martial Machine, does it negate the attack for moving out of range/breaking LoE? Same question for any other counter that makes you move in response to an attack.
Yes.

The falling is also happening only at the end of the next turn. What does imply for movement during the second round if you cannot fly? You just float in mid-air and cannot take move actions to get around? Since the maneuver specifies that it is a jump, does it require a surface to jump off from or does it allow mid-air jumps?
Unless you have some way of moving on air, you're stuck after initiating the maneuver. You can however initiate it mid-air.

Ranger: That's a pretty massive bonus to trip/disarm checks. Something I would have expected from a high level boost at best. And this to every attack.
Yes it's a big bonus, but you need a weapon that already has the properties, and then it's taking your stance slot without actually helping you kill the enemy faster. Halved the scaling just in case.

Gunner: Makes me wonder, if you twin-link a defensive weapon with a non-defensive weapon, do you twin-link attack when you make an immediate action defensive attack or only only the defensive weapon attacks?  The same applies to any other stance/upgrade that twins up different weapons.
You only get to fire two weapons as an immediate action if both have the Defensive property, just like they both need the Twin-Linked property.

Grenade Shell: If it increases by 10-mu the radius every 6 PL, wouldn't it be preferable to make it instead scale by 5-mu per 3 PL? It feels more interesting to have it scale at the same speed but with more to look forward to as you level up.
Ok.

One Point: Kind of like Flicker Jab, but with any weapon instead of a generic plain temp weapon and more attacks upfront at the lower levels. So a super fullattack as a standard action. Pretty strong. The synergy with Piercing Shell is rather obvious as well for big early damage.
Something else I noticed is that you often use the term "shot" and the "firing" verb when describing the attacks while the maneuver can be applied to melee weapons as well since many maneuvers do not specify that they are only for ranged weapons. When I see the shot/fire terminology it makes me wonder if that was intended.
I thought that by using "fire" and "shoot" I was being explicit enough that it only applies to ranged attacks since you don't shoot or fire swords and whatnot but clearly I'm wrong. Added clause at the start of the maneuvers explanations.

Crazy Smash: Haha. Gives additional reasons to carry a 1-shot heavy missile arsenal weapon around. I may be wrong but since they don't consume weapon ammo it also allows you to use a weapon that's already out of ammo. Not bad! As I proceed through the martial discipline, I get the increasing feeling that it is possible to make a good melee build with it.
Yes, doesn't consume ammo.

Reverse Tap: The Finesse and <?> property. Seems something is missing. Looks like a knuckle maneuver infiltrated this discipline, or perhaps Bayonetta?  :p
I can't remember what was supposed to be there so just put Concussive. Also yes, some of the PSO maneuvers appear to be based on popular media. :P


That aside, it gives an attack against every enemy that's adjacent and an extra attack with a regular weapon at every enemy within range. For a level 3, that's pretty early to get what may be an attack all trick. The melee attack may also get a mighty lot of properties considering the twin-linked weapons can well be different from each-other. Special properties is also a pretty general term and can include lots of stuff.
Clarified it's only special mecha weapon properties, limited range to first range increment.


Infinity Fire: Description says you're using a boost but it is a strike. Surprised infinite range is in for level 5 maneuvers, though, and not just once for one target but against everyone, and twice.
Limited to first range increment too.


Diffuse Shell: By range, do you refer to the first range increment or is it meant to include all range increments applicable?
Messiah Time: As above.
Full range, although penalties for increments apply as normal.


Fake Silhouette: Its says the attack cannot crit nor benefit from other boosts beside the Dex modifier. If it considers the dexterity modifier bonus to damage to be a boost, is it possible you meant bonuses rather than boosts? Or maybe both.
Both, fixed.


Chain Trigger: The bonus per chain is big and pretty much never ends unless you leave the stance for some reason, which means it keeps getting bigger if you fight the same enemy over multiple encounters. As per the original, it should only affect the user and not allies and should probably end as soon as you attack any other target (unless perhaps if you're using an AoE that includes a chained target). The bonus wasn't all that amazing in-game either until you used a finisher (strike) for strong bonus damage. And the chain is only from regular attacks.
True, but I wanted to make it more interesting than just moar raw damage.


Cluster Bullet: The same area or the same target? Unless that last part applies only if the attacks are with a ranged area weapon.
Targets fill areas.

Cosmos Breaker: Neat. You're effectively sustaining an invincible bullet-minion as a swift/move action that follows you around and attacks stuff.
As long as you can afford the ammo/energy.

It can also receive additional boosts on the following rounds. How does it behave when that next attack is applying to an area or if it is something like, say, a single attack that attacks every enemy within range? Do you get an area of bullets moving around or in the later case pretty much one bullet for every space within range going around attacking stuff with a move/swift action?
Unless you have a way to extend the secondary boost's duration, it does not carry over. Each round is "fresh".


Shift Period: Maybe there is something subtle I'm missing but how is that not just making the user invulnerable every turn forever? While attacking all enemies no less.
Energy for using the maneuver plus ammo/energy.

Added to the initial clause that the maneuvers demand weapons with ammo/energy and if you don't have enough to fire you can't use the maneuver even if you wanted the secondary effects.

Blahblah minions using ressuply blablah kill da minionz first blah blah jam communications etc etc.

Or you set up a situation where you have a readied attack keyed to when the opponent tries to use Shift Period.

Thank you!
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on March 27, 2017, 01:48:07 AM
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Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on March 29, 2017, 05:37:28 PM
Perhaps, I don't remember it. I only remember changing weapons to the strongest one I had among those whose playstyle I felt most comfortable with.
That's because that's how games work. "Artistic" swapping but that is first and foremost, as well as exclusively, a player-oriented penalty. Intelligent discussion admits that every player will mitigate it, hence why for as much as Osl complains about it he has in turn resorted to bribing people into using volatile weapons by buffing their damage rates to be higher than any other none-volatile weapon. And all that's really done is made an even larger case of how fights come down to which glass cannon wins initiative.



In other news, @Ckirk I revamped the Magitech Knight thread here in SWR (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=17842.0) to simply contain the differences rather than the entirely of the main post to make it easier in updating, balancing, and adding new content. But the third post will still contain some more anime themed ACFs (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=17842.msg321531#msg321531) as I get them wrote similar to how how I've added tweaks to better aim for Warhammer 40k's Space Marines, Power Rangers & their Zords, Bioshock's Big Daddies, and even larger scale RTS support for military campaigns like Drammor's. I've just been too busy playing Dawn of War instead of writing homebrew to finish things.

Speaking of, here's Osl chance to complain again. This is a SWR-scaled lv6 that used the Space Marine ACF to trade spellcasting for double the upgrade points using a newly implemented Twinned option for damage instead of the boring +dexmod & 1/2 level to damage addition I was using before.
(https://i.imgur.com/qNn5QGL.png)Space Marine (human imperium marine 6)
Size/Type: Medium Humanoid[human] (mech large)
Space/Reach: 5 ft./5 ft.
Initiative: +3 (mech +6).
Speed: 30 ft (mech 20ft).
------------------------------
Hit Dice: 6d6+18 (41hp, mech 116 hp)
Abilities (pb32): Str 14/18 (+2/+4), Dex 16/22 (+3/+6), Con 16 (+3), Int 10 (+0), Wis 10 (+0), Cha 14 (+2).
Armor Class: 13 (+3 dex), touch 13, flat 10. (mech 26, t18f20).
Saves: Fort 5 (+9/+11), Ref 2 (+5/+10), Will 5 (+5/+7).
Special Defenses: (mech DR 26/-, resist energy 6, fortification 25%).
------------------------------
Base Attack/Grapple: +6/+8 (mech +14)
Attack: Beretta 92F +10/+5 ranged (2d6+4 piercing)*
Mech Attack: slam +12 melee (1d6+6 bludgeoning) or Quad T-95 Cavalcade +14/+9 ranged (10d6 piercing) or other (see upgrades) or 2rnds/day Twinned Magebane CA[Chainsaw Sword] +12/+6 melee (12d6+14 slashing)
------------------------------
Other: Spirit (60pts, +10/rnd, guard & alert known), 12 hybrid points per day.
Feats: Murky-Eyed, Advanced Firearms Proficiency, Point Blank Shot, Spirit Regen, Precise Shot, Rapid Shot.
Skills: Balance 4.5 (+9), Craft[any] 9 (+11), Spot 9 (+11/+15), Survival 9 (+11).
Upgrades: Heavy Assault Design, Adamantine Fasteners, Vanadium Plating, Duralloy Armor, Class 2 Sensor, Oracle Targeting System x2, Deflection Field x2, Delphi Defense x2, Energy Shields x3, Light Fortification, Life Support, Dexterity Booster x2, Structural Enhancement x4, Twinned T-95 Cavalcade Chaingun, and (Quad Variable-Charge Energy Cannon or Twinned M-87 Talon Missile Launcher x2 or Quad IC-6 Subduer Ion Cannon).
Equipment (WBL 13k): Basic(6gp), Masterwork Tools x4 (200gp), Amulet of Health +2 (4k).


For a quick reference, which is all I've done so far for balance checking, a Super with Growth, Plating x4, Main x3, and Soul of the Machine x2 which accounts for 41% of it's upgrades comes out to having 105hp, 18 DR, 18+Dex AC (plus can still get armor), 58 spirit & +12/rnd with the feat but only knows one Spirit instead of two, and assuming 18 Str has +10/+5 melee (1d10+6d6+8) using it's built-in weaponry. Excluding DR Super clocks in at 69/rnd and mine is 60/rnd without using Rapid Shot. So currently mine has a bit over the in a few areas but the said Super isn't fully stated if anyone wants to offer some useful data. If you want to build off this quick example I used, it has 14 upgrade points left, 6 maneuvers, 3 stances, and 4 arsenal points open plus of course the actual character left to add still.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on March 29, 2017, 11:13:18 PM
Quote
Quote
Aerial Shooting: Sounds like the regular jump n' shoot. Coulda been a boost. Like Martial Machine, does it negate the attack for moving out of range/breaking LoE? Same question for any other counter that makes you move in response to an attack.
Yes.
I expressed myself poorly on that one. I meant "since Martial Machine that gives you movement with the counter do not cancel the attack that provoked the counter (unless a change in AC is above the attack roll or killing the target or similar; stuff not linked to the movement itself), were these Gun Maniac movement granting counters doing the same". Though if you mean for those counters' movement to be able to cancel the attack for moving out of range, then that answers the question all the same.
Ah, I see. The movement by itself is not supposed to cancel the attack.

Quote
Quote
Chain Trigger: The bonus per chain is big and pretty much never ends unless you leave the stance for some reason, which means it keeps getting bigger if you fight the same enemy over multiple encounters. As per the original, it should only affect the user and not allies and should probably end as soon as you attack any other target (unless perhaps if you're using an AoE that includes a chained target). The bonus wasn't all that amazing in-game either until you used a finisher (strike) for strong bonus damage. And the chain is only from regular attacks.
True, but I wanted to make it more interesting than just moar raw damage.
Well... right now it is moar damage. So much it gets hard to beat. For you and all your allies. There is no special mechanic to have it applied since it applies against everyone forever until you change stance. I'd expect the bonus to last just one round even if it was only affecting the user, especially given how fast it can stack with itself and there being no maximum. Most of the +dmg stances give a bonus of about +PL in damage per attack and about half that to attack rolls if any. At PL 15 you hit thrice and you already reach a strong zone even if it only affect you with that one weapon.
And hitting only gets easier since it cranks up the attack bonus as well. Sure, the bonus farming is limited to a single weapon, but the bonus itself applies to every weapon, same for your allies, so they can all do a 15+weapons special fullattack with the bonus to everything.
Removed the bonus to attack rolls, kinda good enough already as it is.

Also yes, technically "only" damage, but benefits the whole party instead of just the initiator.

Quote
As long as you can afford the ammo/energy.
Sure. Lots of ranged weapons don't cost all that much energy. Especially the built-in ones.
Yeah there seem to be some leftovers from the old energy system, gotta go around to fix those.

Quote
It can also receive additional boosts on the following rounds. How does it behave when that next attack is applying to an area or if it is something like, say, a single attack that attacks every enemy within range? Do you get an area of bullets moving around or in the later case pretty much one bullet for every space within range going around attacking stuff with a move/swift action?
Quote
Unless you have a way to extend the secondary boost's duration, it does not carry over. Each round is "fresh".
I know. Just saying you can apply boosts to the shot after the round it's been fired. I was mostly concerned about this applying to area weapons and multi-target "single shots".
Yes, it would get multiple bullets in those cases.

Quote
Quote
Shift Period: Maybe there is something subtle I'm missing but how is that not just making the user invulnerable every turn forever? While attacking all enemies no less.
Energy for using the maneuver plus ammo/energy.
Added to the initial clause that the maneuvers demand weapons with ammo/energy and if you don't have enough to fire you can't use the maneuver even if you wanted the secondary effects.
Considering some weapons don't cost much energy, it easily turns into an objective of simply getting enough energy recovery each round to compensate for the use of the maneuver and the shots. There's a bunch of ways to pull that off. Just the arsenal options offer Reactor 4, %energy savings for maneuvers and extra energy battery. Many built-in ranged weapons cost only 5 EN per shot. The Boxer model offers a 2 EN shot weapon.

Quote
Or you set up a situation where you have a readied attack keyed to when the opponent tries to use Shift Period.
I don't see how this helps. It isn't something you can disrupt like a spell and even if you're hit, the maneuver is triggered to prevent harm and you're invulnerable. Assuming the target isn't invulnerable permanently anyway since it can be triggered during his own turn by having something automatically harm it each round. There are other maneuvers. Add a spammed Alert on top for good measure and ready your own action since your counter allows you to make attacks anyway.
Since mecha maneuvers are not expended and can be spammed if you've got the energy, you can also initiate it again in response to a readied attack.
Eeerrr, normally you only get one Immediate action per turn.

Anyway. Only point I wanted to make is that this is spammable invulnerability. No cooldown or nothin'. You already made other invulnerability tricks and they aren't as easy to abuse as this one.
But you're correct, it's still too spammable, so changed it so that you need to spend 2x ammo/energy per source of harm and the final twin-linked burst demands extra cost.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on March 30, 2017, 01:01:47 PM
Quote
Yes, it would get multiple bullets in those cases.
In the case of an attack that attacked multiple targets with a single attack roll without being an area weapon, would each of those bullets require a bullet/Energy cost to keep going afterwards? How does that work?
Or the very same attack keeps repeating itself as if you were at any one of the targets of that attack? Since the repeating attack on following rounds are 'new' does it revert to a single bullet on the next round if the initial attack had multiple targets thanks to a Boost or other special ability? (wondering since you already confirmed a boost doesn't apply on the next turn unless you use the boost again, in which case it would likely make sense that the multiple bullets would only be sustained for as long as you keep using the boost/special ability for their attack each round).

As to the Chain Trigger stance, I think there should be at least one other means to reset the chain counter to prevent the bonus to damage everyone gets to stack way out of proportion and apply forever and to actually give you a reason to use another stance someday.
Even Ancient Temple's Slash of Eternity ends if you miss three attacks in a row. It could also reset after a long enough period of time passes without you nor any ally hitting the target.
It is weird otherwise and really doesn't feel like a chain attack.

Showtime Star
While I'm looking at that discipline, I'd like to confirm something was/wasn't intended. Toughness Time and One More Time can be triggered every round after they get triggered once. Here's an example:
Round 1: Riffle maneuver used.
Round 2: Launcher maneuver used. *not a Riffle maneuver = Toughness Time~
Round 3: Twin Guns maneuver used. *not a Riffle nor Launcher maneuver = One More Time~
alt Round 3: Riffle maneuver used. *not a Launcher maneuver = Toughness Time~
Round 4: Riffle maneuver used. *not a Launcher nor Twin Guns maneuver = One More Time~
Round 5: Launcher maneuver used. *not a Twin Guns nor Riffle maneuver = One More Time~

Also, when it requires that only one R/L/TG maneuver be used per round, while it does allow for maneuvers of another discipline to be used along with those without breaking the sequence, what about Gun Maniac stances?
While being stances, they are also maneuvers so technically if you use a Gun Maniac stance during the sequence you cannot use another Gun Maniac maneuver without breaking it. If that is so, what of the stances that have more than one type (say, Launcher+Riffle). As with Trinity learning requirements, you choose which one applies?

Support Machine Minions
I recognize the machine mistress robots. :)
Before looking at most of the stuff that concerns them (most of the accessories being strikenthrough, perhaps by mistake), I'll note that the Mass Minions pick sort of has the Minion Machine pick as a requirement. The same way Mega Minion requires both to do anything. But Mass Minions cap at 19 picks? How to even get 19 picks? The class offers 13 and you need to spend one on Minion Machine, which makes it cap at 12 picks by default at level 18, which means Mega Minion has 11 picks of Mass Minion to merge maximum.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on April 02, 2017, 03:26:26 AM
Quote
Yes, it would get multiple bullets in those cases.
In the case of an attack that attacked multiple targets with a single attack roll without being an area weapon, would each of those bullets require a bullet/Energy cost to keep going afterwards? How does that work?
Or the very same attack keeps repeating itself as if you were at any one of the targets of that attack? Since the repeating attack on following rounds are 'new' does it revert to a single bullet on the next round if the initial attack had multiple targets thanks to a Boost or other special ability? (wondering since you already confirmed a boost doesn't apply on the next turn unless you use the boost again, in which case it would likely make sense that the multiple bullets would only be sustained for as long as you keep using the boost/special ability for their attack each round).
If you can normally attack multiple targets with a single bullet/energy cost, then you pay as normal.
Added clause that new attacks come from a single position even if you had harea/multi-target.

As to the Chain Trigger stance, I think there should be at least one other means to reset the chain counter to prevent the bonus to damage everyone gets to stack way out of proportion and apply forever and to actually give you a reason to use another stance someday.
Even Ancient Temple's Slash of Eternity ends if you miss three attacks in a row. It could also reset after a long enough period of time passes without you nor any ally hitting the target.
It is weird otherwise and really doesn't feel like a chain attack.
Ok, made Chain Counters reduce by 1 at the start of enemy round.

Showtime Star
While I'm looking at that discipline, I'd like to confirm something was/wasn't intended. Toughness Time and One More Time can be triggered every round after they get triggered once. Here's an example:
Round 1: Riffle maneuver used.
Round 2: Launcher maneuver used. *not a Riffle maneuver = Toughness Time~
Round 3: Twin Guns maneuver used. *not a Riffle nor Launcher maneuver = One More Time~
alt Round 3: Riffle maneuver used. *not a Launcher maneuver = Toughness Time~
Round 4: Riffle maneuver used. *not a Launcher nor Twin Guns maneuver = One More Time~
Round 5: Launcher maneuver used. *not a Twin Guns nor Riffle maneuver = One More Time~
That alt round 3 isn't possible since you need to use the third type of maneuver.

You could go rifle-launcher-twin guns or any other sequence where you keep switching weapons, in which case yes you can keep chaining them.

Also, when it requires that only one R/L/TG maneuver be used per round, while it does allow for maneuvers of another discipline to be used along with those without breaking the sequence, what about Gun Maniac stances?
While being stances, they are also maneuvers so technically if you use a Gun Maniac stance during the sequence you cannot use another Gun Maniac maneuver without breaking it. If that is so, what of the stances that have more than one type (say, Launcher+Riffle). As with Trinity learning requirements, you choose which one applies?
Stances would only count if you enter them.
They would count as all their types so cannot trigger One More time.

Support Machine Minions
I recognize the machine mistress robots. :)
Yay, somebody remembers that! (https://fi.somethingawful.com/images/smilies/emot-v.gif)

Before looking at most of the stuff that concerns them (most of the accessories being strikenthrough, perhaps by mistake), I'll note that the Mass Minions pick sort of has the Minion Machine pick as a requirement. The same way Mega Minion requires both to do anything. But Mass Minions cap at 19 picks? How to even get 19 picks? The class offers 13 and you need to spend one on Minion Machine, which makes it cap at 12 picks by default at level 18, which means Mega Minion has 11 picks of Mass Minion to merge maximum.
Good point, shuffled around the minion numbers to smooth up the progression.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on April 02, 2017, 09:46:22 AM
Quote
Ok, made Chain Counters reduce by 1 at the start of enemy round.
Hm. If you ever get to play that stance in-game maybe you'll see what I mean. The reset is slow and very forgiving but at least there is one. The stance is easier to deal with, however, when those it is being used against realize what the stance is doing and that it is linked to a specific weapon.

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That alt round 3 isn't possible since you need to use the third type of maneuver.
It is if all you want is to loop Riffle/Launcher for Toughness Time and forget about One More Time. The Alt Round 3 doesn't go to round 4, it loops back to round 2. I should have mentioned that. It's what I meant when I said you could trigger Toughness Time every round.

Quote
Stances would only count if you enter them.
Aye, that's what I meant. Only the initiation itself would count, not merely being under one.

Thank you for the answers.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on April 05, 2017, 03:04:41 AM
Quote
Ok, made Chain Counters reduce by 1 at the start of enemy round.
Hm. If you ever get to play that stance in-game maybe you'll see what I mean. The reset is slow and very forgiving but at least there is one. The stance is easier to deal with, however, when those it is being used against realize what the stance is doing and that it is linked to a specific weapon.
Nerfed it some more, now only the chosen weapon gains the damage benfit, and allies must choose a weapon to benefit as well.

Quote
Quote
That alt round 3 isn't possible since you need to use the third type of maneuver.
It is if all you want is to loop Riffle/Launcher for Toughness Time and forget about One More Time. The Alt Round 3 doesn't go to round 4, it loops back to round 2. I should have mentioned that. It's what I meant when I said you could trigger Toughness Time every round.
I'm fine with that. Still switching weapons to some degree.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on April 06, 2017, 10:00:41 PM
Quote
I'm fine with that. Still switching weapons to some degree.
Sort of, since mechas have all their weapons equipped by default and don't actually switch anything. Many maneuvers do not require actually using a different weapon either but I get the spirit of the thing.

Medic Support

Drugs- So, who actually gets the permanent hp damage? The mecha or the pilot? Because you are essentially (usually) shooting giant needles through a cockpit into a tiny body. Maybe injecting the creature with way more than its entire volume in liquid.

Quote
Brainwash-With 1d12 hours of work on an helpless or willing subject (even unorganic ones)
Kinda weird that a recovering brainwashed creature would go on revenge quests against the medic when they were willing to be brainwashed to begin with.
Though if they cancel the brainshed effect with a status-effect negating ability it may cancel the whole thing, revenge quests included.
Also, may want a cap on the picks on this one. Makes a pretty massive amount of bonus feats and technically the Medic could brainwash himself. A common practice.

Direct Link- Looks like something that thematically would work nicely on inorganics. If not actually make more sense. Even if applied on an Android using One with the Machine it makes it just as dangerous since they both eat the damage and if the android wishes to end the effect he eats even more.

We Can Rebuild Them: That one often happens in a similar fashion as well except the new creature is a construct instead of a living monster. Although they can still indeed get construct monster levels if they keep their original living creature type instead of switching to construct. The fallen often returns as a mechanized version of itself. The way this ability works makes more sense in many cases than the Scientists' Mechanization.

Operation: I hope only different kinds of operations can stack together and not the same kind multiple times.

=====================

Something that may be interesting for the Support Staff is the ability to use his specialization abilities even without his mecha if he is working within his base or some special room designed to be his laboratory/workshop/clinic. The room would be equipped with all the special equipment he needs to do his stuff. It just makes sense.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on April 07, 2017, 07:27:35 AM
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I'm fine with that. Still switching weapons to some degree.
Sort of, since mechas have all their weapons equipped by default and don't actually switch anything. Many maneuvers do not require actually using a different weapon either but I get the spirit of the thing.
You mean the spirit recovery? :p

Medic Support

Drugs- So, who actually gets the permanent hp damage? The mecha or the pilot? Because you are essentially (usually) shooting giant needles through a cockpit into a tiny body. Maybe injecting the creature with way more than its entire volume in liquid.
The target must be an organic creature so mechas don't really qualify. Any structural damage will be so minor to don't count like a mosquito's bite.

Also eyeballing the correct amount of stuff to inject in a patient is part of the training of any good medic.

Quote
Brainwash-With 1d12 hours of work on an helpless or willing subject (even unorganic ones)
Kinda weird that a recovering brainwashed creature would go on revenge quests against the medic when they were willing to be brainwashed to begin with.
"I didn't know I would end like this! You lied to me! "
Nobody ever reads the secondary effects disclaimer properly.

Though if they cancel the brainshed effect with a status-effect negating ability it may cancel the whole thing, revenge quests included.
Added clause that they count as permanent for removal stuff.

Also, may want a cap on the picks on this one. Makes a pretty massive amount of bonus feats and technically the Medic could brainwash himself. A common practice.
Put limit on how many extra feats you can cram in somebody, allowed to stack standing for different creatures.

Direct Link- Looks like something that thematically would work nicely on inorganics. If not actually make more sense. Even if applied on an Android using One with the Machine it makes it just as dangerous since they both eat the damage and if the android wishes to end the effect he eats even more.
But part of the medic's charm is pushing puny organics beyond their limits. (https://i.somethingawful.com/forumsystem/emoticons/emot-zoro.gif)

We Can Rebuild Them: That one often happens in a similar fashion as well except the new creature is a construct instead of a living monster. Although they can still indeed get construct monster levels if they keep their original living creature type instead of switching to construct. The fallen often returns as a mechanized version of itself. The way this ability works makes more sense in many cases than the Scientists' Mechanization.
Mechanization is more about getting expendable mooks, while this is more for, well, rebuilding somebody. :P

Operation: I hope only different kinds of operations can stack together and not the same kind multiple times.
Ah, yes, forgot that clause, thanks. Also increased the HP cost.

=====================

Something that may be interesting for the Support Staff is the ability to use his specialization abilities even without his mecha if he is working within his base or some special room designed to be his laboratory/workshop/clinic. The room would be equipped with all the special equipment he needs to do his stuff. It just makes sense.
Indeed it does.

You know what doesn't make sense? Making humanoid giant robots when other forms would be much more cost-efficient.

So again the excuse is that it just happens that some new SCIENCE! revolution results in mechas being the most cost-efficient way of applying all this technology. No mecha, no super tech.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on April 08, 2017, 05:58:56 PM
Added Velocity Assault Logical Kelvin Yggdrasil Rapid Insertion Engine (I).
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on April 08, 2017, 05:59:11 PM
Added Velocity Assault Logical Kelvin Yggdrasil Rapid Insertion Engine (II).
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on April 08, 2017, 05:59:56 PM
Added Velocity Assault Logical Kelvin Yggdrasil Rapid Insertion Engine (III).
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on April 08, 2017, 06:00:12 PM
Added Velocity Assault Logical Kelvin Yggdrasil Rapid Insertion Engine (IV).
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on April 08, 2017, 06:00:25 PM
Added Velocity Assault Logical Kelvin Yggdrasil Rapid Insertion Engine (V).
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on April 08, 2017, 06:00:40 PM
Added Velocity Assault Logical Kelvin Yggdrasil Rapid Insertion Engine(VI).
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on April 08, 2017, 06:00:53 PM
Added Velocity Assault Logical Kelvin Yggdrasil Rapid Insertion Engine(VII).
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on April 08, 2017, 06:04:31 PM
Fixed Federation Officer's sample NPC Blash eXperimental Hyper Bazooka-L-03/N-STD's attack bonus.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on April 08, 2017, 06:44:06 PM
Added Heat Axe.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on April 08, 2017, 06:44:19 PM
Added Heat Tomahawk.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on April 08, 2017, 06:47:10 PM
Added Heat Saber.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on April 08, 2017, 06:54:40 PM
Added Heat Saber Type 7.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on April 12, 2017, 11:14:58 PM
You could have mentioned it all in a single post, and actually didn't even need to thanks to your changelogs. Weird.
You'd have reached 700 posts in the thread before long anyway.

Anyway.

Quote
You mean the spirit recovery? :p
:P
Here I thought I was being subtle.

Quote
The target must be an organic creature so mechas don't really qualify. Any structural damage will be so minor to don't count like a mosquito's bite.
So the ability technically cannot be used on a pilot within a mecha. Though if the ability can target mechas to only affect the pilot, then beyond having a means to inflict direct damage to pilots reliably the ability would be a gamble unless you know the race of the pilot, since you do not necessarily know if the pilot is organic. Also, is this assuming a dictionary definition of organic creature (since dnd nomenclature is usually separates them by the terms "corporate living" while many undead creatures can count as organic. Some constructs would also count as organic.

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But part of the medic's charm is pushing puny organics beyond their limits.
Aye. Which often involves cyborgization to bring them back from the brink of death. Jeremiah Gottwald returned thanks to such an operation.
More of a scientist thing, sure, but rebuilding people (with other organic stuff or not) usually is, anyway.

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Quote
Operation: I hope only different kinds of operations can stack together and not the same kind multiple times.
Ah, yes, forgot that clause, thanks. Also increased the HP cost.
As is it prevents multiple of the same operation applying from the same support staff medics, but not different applications of the same operation from different medics.

Also, there numerous references in Support Staff to pilot level.
Pilot level is usually the measure for pilot maneuvers and those are often calculated the same way initiator level is (base class levels + half other class levels), but support staffs don't get any maneuvers nor its own clarification what on pilot level means for it and how it is calculated. It seems here to be confused with the term "class level", which refers exclusively to levels in the actual class.

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Indeed it does.
You know what doesn't make sense? Making humanoid giant robots when other forms would be much more cost-efficient.
So again the excuse is that it just happens that some new SCIENCE! revolution results in mechas being the most cost-efficient way of applying all this technology. No mecha, no super tech.
It making sense isn't the core of the reason I'm suggesting it. I think it would make the class more interesting and satisfying to play since you aren't always in the mecha and even then it isn't much of an advantage since it is limited to a specific area only, which means it isn't helping as much when going out adventuring and and just about not at all during fights (unless they happen within/close enough to the base's building).
The caster pilots, for example, still have their spells/psionics while on foot. Even the super/real pilots have means to use their maneuvers while on foot thanks to a feat.
The princess has abilities that can help while on foot. The support staff cannot use his abilities without a mecha. And working in your lab/special place is cool and would make the class a bit more fun.
Just a suggestion and I'm explaining exactly why I'm suggesting it.

Edit: Almost forgot:
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For the creation of replacement clones, a time roll of 1 means the new clone has an incurable cancer that will kill them in 1d12 months. This will not carry to new clones though.
As is, nothing about the cloning option that specifically creates clones. That line implies that it does, but it doesn't detail how we go about making a clone.
The Raise Dead/Resurrection options are probably meant to count as making clones but then the difference with the regular spell effect would be greater than simply needing 10% of the body mass instead of the whole or important part of the body (or nothing for True Rezz). It changes the requirements of the willingness of the soul and wouldn't require the creature to actually be dead along with allowing the making of duplicates. Just to clarify that while you did put info on what applies to clones and such, the ability itself currently replicates spell effects that themselves aren't making clones.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on April 13, 2017, 10:56:24 PM
You could have mentioned it all in a single post, and actually didn't even need to thanks to your changelogs. Weird.
Yeah but then he wouldn't get to keep listing his thread at the bottom of the main page :p

Which, if you're like a couple of our members, doesn't work if you use unread (http://) since it lists the thread once irregardless of the number of new posts. Anyway, editing tip. ctrl+i is the command shortcut for adding italic text, b and u work as well for bold/underline. It's faster than typing out the format and skips errors like [ /i] in the Terror Tactics School. But, what is that image from? I feel like I've seen it before but I can't place it.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on April 14, 2017, 02:20:22 AM
Quote
The target must be an organic creature so mechas don't really qualify. Any structural damage will be so minor to don't count like a mosquito's bite.
So the ability technically cannot be used on a pilot within a mecha. Though if the ability can target mechas to only affect the pilot, then beyond having a means to inflict direct damage to pilots reliably the ability would be a gamble unless you know the race of the pilot, since you do not necessarily know if the pilot is organic.
Correct.

Also, is this assuming a dictionary definition of organic creature (since dnd nomenclature is usually separates them by the terms "corporate living" while many undead creatures can count as organic. Some constructs would also count as organic.
Undeads and constructs may look like organic, but considering their production proccess results in materials that no bacteria can survive in and in which toxins and enzymes and whatnot have zero reaction, they're clearly not organic anymore. Plus the bit where a destroyed undead can't be re-animated again.

Quote
But part of the medic's charm is pushing puny organics beyond their limits.
Aye. Which often involves cyborgization to bring them back from the brink of death. Jeremiah Gottwald returned thanks to such an operation.
More of a scientist thing, sure, but rebuilding people (with other organic stuff or not) usually is, anyway.
That's for what the rebuilding option is. :p

But anyway the point is connecting meat bag directly to mecha. Not connecting mecha to other metal thingy.

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Quote
Operation: I hope only different kinds of operations can stack together and not the same kind multiple times.
Ah, yes, forgot that clause, thanks. Also increased the HP cost.
As is it prevents multiple of the same operation applying from the same support staff medics, but not different applications of the same operation from different medics.
Moar clauses added.

Also, there numerous references in Support Staff to pilot level.
Pilot level is usually the measure for pilot maneuvers and those are often calculated the same way initiator level is (base class levels + half other class levels), but support staffs don't get any maneuvers nor its own clarification what on pilot level means for it and how it is calculated. It seems here to be confused with the term "class level", which refers exclusively to levels in the actual class.
Nah, it's your usual pseudo-IL that counts half other levels, added clause for that in Specialization.

Quote
Indeed it does.
You know what doesn't make sense? Making humanoid giant robots when other forms would be much more cost-efficient.
So again the excuse is that it just happens that some new SCIENCE! revolution results in mechas being the most cost-efficient way of applying all this technology. No mecha, no super tech.
It making sense isn't the core of the reason I'm suggesting it. I think it would make the class more interesting and satisfying to play since you aren't always in the mecha and even then it isn't much of an advantage since it is limited to a specific area only, which means it isn't helping as much when going out adventuring and and just about not at all during fights (unless they happen within/close enough to the base's building).
The caster pilots, for example, still have their spells/psionics while on foot. Even the super/real pilots have means to use their maneuvers while on foot thanks to a feat.
The princess has abilities that can help while on foot. The support staff cannot use his abilities without a mecha. And working in your lab/special place is cool and would make the class a bit more fun.
Just a suggestion and I'm explaining exactly why I'm suggesting it.
Well that's a much better explanation. Added clause for that in specialization.

Edit: Almost forgot:
Quote
For the creation of replacement clones, a time roll of 1 means the new clone has an incurable cancer that will kill them in 1d12 months. This will not carry to new clones though.
As is, nothing about the cloning option that specifically creates clones. That line implies that it does, but it doesn't detail how we go about making a clone.
The Raise Dead/Resurrection options are probably meant to count as making clones but then the difference with the regular spell effect would be greater than simply needing 10% of the body mass instead of the whole or important part of the body (or nothing for True Rezz). It changes the requirements of the willingness of the soul and wouldn't require the creature to actually be dead along with allowing the making of duplicates. Just to clarify that while you did put info on what applies to clones and such, the ability itself currently replicates spell effects that themselves aren't making clones.
Should be better worded now.

Anyway, editing tip. ctrl+i is the command shortcut for adding italic text, b and u work as well for bold/underline. It's faster than typing out the format and skips errors like [ /i] in the Terror Tactics School.
I use basic .txt to write most of my D&D related stuff. No, I don't care what you use to write yourself. No, I don't care what you think I should use to write my stuff. Any other word from you about the topic of commands that only work on specific text editors will be considered spam and dealt with accordingly.

But, what is that image from? I feel like I've seen it before but I can't place it.
Zakus MK II being pwned in some Gundam show. Not sure which one, found the gif on the net.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on April 14, 2017, 02:24:02 PM
Quote
Quote
Also, is this assuming a dictionary definition of organic creature (since dnd nomenclature is usually separates them by the terms "corporatecorporeal living" while many undead creatures can count as organic. Some constructs would also count as organic.

Undeads and constructs may look like organic, but considering their production proccess results in materials that no bacteria can survive in and in which toxins and enzymes and whatnot have zero reaction, they're clearly not organic anymore. Plus the bit where a destroyed undead can't be re-animated again.
Fine by me though you may want to clarify somewhere that all references to organic creatures is another way to say corporeal living creature or otherwise define it since it isn't obvious. Many undead creatures have fast healing, carry diseases, have abilities that feel very organic such as a dangerous digestion system and even the Atropal was designed with Regeneration for some reason. Some constructs can be built out of plants and may even do stuff like actual photosynthesis.

Quote
Quote
Aye. Which often involves cyborgization to bring them back from the brink of death. Jeremiah Gottwald returned thanks to such an operation.
More of a scientist thing, sure, but rebuilding people (with other organic stuff or not) usually is, anyway.
That's for what the rebuilding option is. :p
But anyway the point is connecting meat bag directly to mecha. Not connecting mecha to other metal thingy.
Aye, I was referring to the rebuilding option there indeed.

Quote
You can apply multiple operations in a single creature, but no more than one of each kind (including not being able to perform an operation on a subject that is already under effect from that operation by somebody else).
Looks good though maybe it should not apply to Plastic Surgery. But that's only from a logical standpoint. You could of course revert the Plastic Surgery operation to put another one but it is a bit weird that you'd have to return to your previous face before getting another one.

Good fixes. Maybe the class would also benefit from class-specific feats, such as a "Double Degree/Double Doctorate" feat that allows a Support Staff to pick specializations out of two different fields instead of one.


Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on April 15, 2017, 11:58:18 PM
Quote
Quote
Also, is this assuming a dictionary definition of organic creature (since dnd nomenclature is usually separates them by the terms "corporatecorporeal living" while many undead creatures can count as organic. Some constructs would also count as organic.

Undeads and constructs may look like organic, but considering their production proccess results in materials that no bacteria can survive in and in which toxins and enzymes and whatnot have zero reaction, they're clearly not organic anymore. Plus the bit where a destroyed undead can't be re-animated again.
Fine by me though you may want to clarify somewhere that all references to organic creatures is another way to say corporeal living creature or otherwise define it since it isn't obvious. Many undead creatures have fast healing, carry diseases, have abilities that feel very organic such as a dangerous digestion system and even the Atropal was designed with Regeneration for some reason. Some constructs can be built out of plants and may even do stuff like actual photosynthesis.
Inevitables have Fast Healing and they're explicitly mass produced metal robots. And one of the basic undead/construct traits is that they count as objects for Fort effects.
But ok added living bit to make it crystal clear.

Quote
You can apply multiple operations in a single creature, but no more than one of each kind (including not being able to perform an operation on a subject that is already under effect from that operation by somebody else).
Looks good though maybe it should not apply to Plastic Surgery. But that's only from a logical standpoint. You could of course revert the Plastic Surgery operation to put another one but it is a bit weird that you'd have to return to your previous face before getting another one.
You mean actors never wash their faces or take off their clothes and just keep piling up make-up and garments layer over layer?

Similarly when you go to a fancy hair stylist, first thing to do is washing and untangling your hair.

Good fixes. Maybe the class would also benefit from class-specific feats, such as a "Double Degree/Double Doctorate" feat that allows a Support Staff to pick specializations out of two different fields instead of one.
Was wondering when somebody would ask that. Done. :p
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on April 18, 2017, 12:18:40 PM
Super Arcanist lists as its pre-reqs: At least one level of Real Pilot and Arcane Pilot
Should probably be: At least one level of Super Pilot and Arcane Pilot
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on April 18, 2017, 08:56:15 PM
Something I'm wondering, should the buff on Alert/Invincible still have them auto-apply against Defensive weapons when they are not used "defensively". Just attacking with it as you would any other weapon.

As for the cohorts/followers/similars being denied as well, it is mechanically all right as long as it applies as well to enemy mooks since Alert/Invincible by default were already better for enemies than PCs since the bosses often have their mooks trigger the Alert/Invincible for them so it was only fair-game that the PCs could use their own.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on April 20, 2017, 08:28:47 AM
Super Arcanist lists as its pre-reqs: At least one level of Real Pilot and Arcane Pilot
Should probably be: At least one level of Super Pilot and Arcane Pilot

Fixed, thanks!

Something I'm wondering, should the buff on Alert/Invincible still have them auto-apply against Defensive weapons when they are not used "defensively". Just attacking with it as you would any other weapon.
Added clause for that.

As for the cohorts/followers/similars being denied as well, it is mechanically all right as long as it applies as well to enemy mooks since Alert/Invincible by default were already better for enemies than PCs since the bosses often have their mooks trigger the Alert/Invincible for them so it was only fair-game that the PCs could use their own.
Depends on whetever said minions are granted by abilities/feats or not. The party by definition has multiple members so they can still peel off Alert/Invincibility by focus fire.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on April 20, 2017, 11:57:16 PM
Something that may be worth nothing about those spellcasting dual progression feats;

Unlike regular dual progression feats, those benefit only the spellcasting itself. Meaning the pilot casting classes give no advantages to their paired pilot class that any other class wouldn't grant.
As for the casting itself, unlike martial progression from multiclassing, this one actually progresses the casting rather than give virtual progression as some monster classes do (you progress the casting, but do not get any new known spells and such). So it progresses casting better from multiclassing than martial abilities do.
So at the cost of a feat and one class level, you can just about max your martial ability and get significant spellcasting on top. Two if you need more than buffing spells and want regular mecha stats.

Also, those feats granting progression off Real/Super pilot levels in a gestalt/similar means they can manipulate the progression by having super/real pilot levels on one side and a casting-progressing prestige class every odd super/real pilot level to get maximum pilot casting progression as well.

Either way it would probably be a good idea to limit half the levels to virtually progress the casting instead of real progress.

Also, many of your new feats are Pilot feats but do not have a pilot-class requirement unlike most of the others, in case it wasn't intended.
The child soldier trait also isn't available to Moon Vanguards, though it is in a different campaign setting. Unless that was intended, considering it is currently including just about every pilot base classes, it could follow suit with most of the feats and have Any Pilot Class as the requirement.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on April 21, 2017, 12:46:04 AM
Something that may be worth nothing about those spellcasting dual progression feats;

Unlike regular dual progression feats, those benefit only the spellcasting itself. Meaning the pilot casting classes give no advantages to their paired pilot class that any other class wouldn't grant.
As for the casting itself, unlike martial progression from multiclassing, this one actually progresses the casting rather than give virtual progression as some monster classes do (you progress the casting, but do not get any new known spells and such). So it progresses casting better from multiclassing than martial abilities do.
So at the cost of a feat and one class level, you can just about max your martial ability and get significant spellcasting on top. Two if you need more than buffing spells and want regular mecha stats.
Well if you like my pseudo-casting that much I'll gladly change the feats to work that way.

Also, those feats granting progression off Real/Super pilot levels in a gestalt/similar means they can manipulate the progression by having super/real pilot levels on one side and a casting-progressing prestige class every odd super/real pilot level to get maximum pilot casting progression as well.

Either way it would probably be a good idea to limit half the levels to virtually progress the casting instead of real progress.
That's an issue with gestalt itself and would happen with regular prcs if you're willing to allow cheesy readings like that.

Also, many of your new feats are Pilot feats but do not have a pilot-class requirement unlike most of the others, in case it wasn't intended.
Meh, just decided it wasn't worth the effort to be honest. Some of those don't work at all unless you have a mecha. And if somebody else from another campaign wants to use Terrain mastery or Hug Cover for a non-pilot class and their DM approves, sure go ahead, I'm not going to send my ninja squad to silence them because of it.

The child soldier trait also isn't available to Moon Vanguards, though it is in a different campaign setting. Unless that was intended, considering it is currently including just about every pilot base classes, it could follow suit with most of the feats and have Any Pilot Class as the requirement.

Now that you mention it, since I'm using Reimu for most Moon Vanguard pics it's only fair I give her the option of being an orphan child soldier living in poverty because she spends all her loot on booze doesn't know any better.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on April 24, 2017, 02:11:38 PM
As written, maneuvers that let you fire weapons (like Iron Blow from Into the Danger Zone) seem to let you fire heavy weapons with them as a standard action. Is that intended behavior? If not, they should probably read 'Initiation Action: Same as weapon'
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on April 24, 2017, 09:49:52 PM
@CKirk: It is intended. I asked that question long ago.

Mega Minion: Impossible to max since it requires 14 picks and you only get 13. And even then you'd spend a big chunk of all your class abilities to get the minions. At a lower level than the machine mistress, too. Interestingly, you technically can have Machine Mistress on the other side of the gestalt for about double the minions. Could be fun.

Factory Bases: Those that produce arsenal accessories and such... how do they work? Can't you technically get those for free when changing arsenal anyway? Everyone's limited by what the mecha can equip anyway, not by what's available. What's the point?

We Can Rebuild Them: Corpse must be at least 1 min fresh to use the ability, but it takes at least an hour of work. If it means that it has to be 1 minute fresh before you start working on it... then how is the work period handled? Does it keep rotting further while you're taking breaks? Because odds are when you get the corpse you're more or less starting working close to where the dude died. Do you have to stay there for up to 12 hours with everyone twiddling their fingers in the meantime or can you work on the body while moving around? If another fight starts and your work gets interrupted, does it ruin the entire process? Not to mention the corpse that's been dead for much more than a minute by then.

Drugs: Fixer seems meant to apply against drugs used separately down to 1 max hp each rather than reduce all max dmg from every drugs injected down to 1, altogether. The drugs affect the pilots (and organic mechas like the Eisnt thingies, maybe) so are some of the effects not as significant during mecha fights? Healing effects only heal the pilot, not the mecha and stuff like Painkiller doesn't apply for the mecha, only the pilot. Which means that your class abilities help a pilot not get killed by crits, I suppose, which means you're not very useful unless to help mecha-less pilots not die so fast, which delays the inevitable. Unless the rest of your party are all Einst, in which case everyone loves your ass.

Quote
Well if you like my pseudo-casting that much I'll gladly change the feats to work that way.
Not really but at least it isn't normal casting.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on April 24, 2017, 10:52:40 PM
@CKirk: It is intended. I asked that question long ago.
Correct, thanks.

Mega Minion: Impossible to max since it requires 14 picks and you only get 13. And even then you'd spend a big chunk of all your class abilities to get the minions. At a lower level than the machine mistress, too. Interestingly, you technically can have Machine Mistress on the other side of the gestalt for about double the minions. Could be fun.
The new 20th level Support Staff capstone should take care of allowing full Mega Minion. Progression gets a bit ahead of Machine Mistress now and then yes, but on the other hand you don't get the super prototype with discounts either. Gestalting with actual Machine Mistress sounds a bit (https://i.somethingawful.com/forumsystem/emoticons/emot-psyboom.gif).

Factory Bases: Those that produce arsenal accessories and such... how do they work? Can't you technically get those for free when changing arsenal anyway? Everyone's limited by what the mecha can equip anyway, not by what's available. What's the point?
My idea was that the base factory units are limited to the Arsenal the same Support Staff can produce, since each support staff's blueprints have their own personal quirks and result in compatibility problems for the arsenal supplied by the parent organization. Clarified.

We Can Rebuild Them: Corpse must be at least 1 min fresh to use the ability, but it takes at least an hour of work. If it means that it has to be 1 minute fresh before you start working on it... then how is the work period handled? Does it keep rotting further while you're taking breaks? Because odds are when you get the corpse you're more or less starting working close to where the dude died. Do you have to stay there for up to 12 hours with everyone twiddling their fingers in the meantime or can you work on the body while moving around? If another fight starts and your work gets interrupted, does it ruin the entire process? Not to mention the corpse that's been dead for much more than a minute by then.
Added extra clauses, the first step of the process is stopping body rot by chemical bath/cryo chamber that also allows for pausing and resuming, plus being carried inside a battleship.

Drugs: Fixer seems meant to apply against drugs used separately down to 1 max hp each rather than reduce all max dmg from every drugs injected down to 1, altogether.
Correct, multiple drugs will need multiple Fixer uses.

The drugs affect the pilots (and organic mechas like the Eisnt thingies, maybe) so are some of the effects not as significant during mecha fights? Healing effects only heal the pilot, not the mecha and stuff like Painkiller doesn't apply for the mecha, only the pilot. Which means that your class abilities help a pilot not get killed by crits, I suppose, which means you're not very useful unless to help mecha-less pilots not die so fast, which delays the inevitable. Unless the rest of your party are all Einst, in which case everyone loves your ass.
Correct again. (https://i.somethingawful.com/forumsystem/emoticons/emot-drugnerd.gif)

Quote
Well if you like my pseudo-casting that much I'll gladly change the feats to work that way.
Not really but at least it isn't normal casting.
(https://i.somethingawful.com/forumsystem/emoticons/emot-hfive.gif)
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on April 30, 2017, 03:05:50 AM
Anomander, I've noticed that mecha engineer prototypes have better AC bonuses than any equivalent reals (this is especially noticeable in the case of the Astelion at tier IV, which not only has worse armor than an equivalent Dynamic Frame at level of acquisition, is the same or worse in every way aside from move speed). Could I please get your reasoning for this?

To provide some numbers, reals (aside from generics) universally have the same net AC (+/-1) from dodge and nat armor at a given tier, scaling up at slightly less than 1/level (aside from the jump between grades 1 and 2, real grades increase AC by alternating 4 and 2). Specific values are in the table below:

Arsenal Tier|Real Net Dodge+Nat Armor AC|Generic Net Dodge+Nat Armor AC|Prototype Net Dodge+Nat Armor AC
I|2|0|4
II|8|6|9
III|10|8|11
IV|14|10|16
V|16|14|22
VI|20|18|27
VII|22|20|31

As you can see, Prototypes consistently have the highest AC bonus, with a dramatic increase at tier V. Also noticeable on the table is that Generic reals have generally lower numbers. Perhaps to encourage specific real use?

Basically, I'm just really confused why the mecha engineer gets better AC than equivalent reals. If this isn't intentional, a change to bring the numbers more in line would be appreciated (perhaps bringing the scaling down to 1/level from 1.5/level net, which would, aside from at tier 1, put prototype AC much closer to real AC at level of acquisition)
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on April 30, 2017, 07:18:30 PM
Thank you for notifying me. I do not recall exactly how I came up with that AC progression back when I first made the frames but I do remember the numbers fitting back then. Perhaps they changed since then and I didn't notice or I wasn't as thorough with the AC progression comparison as I thought. They were meant to be in the same waters.

I'm changing the frames to these rates effective immediately:

(click to show/hide)

They'll begin with an AC sum of 3, compared to 0 to 3 for the Reals and 2 to 6 for the Supers but their DR isn't as high as most of those models, which is mostly at 5. Most 1st tier Real models also have access to a good maneuverability flight by default, which helps.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on April 30, 2017, 09:19:50 PM
Been somewhat busy and no time to update my D&D stuff but some blatant things just need to be pointed out.

Most 1st tier Real models also have access to a good maneuverability flight by default, which helps.

Here are the tier 1 reals that have flight speed at good maneuverability.

Lion: 0 DR, 0 Nat Armor, 1 DR, 0 Dodge, 1 hardpoint.
Barrelion: +5 Nat Armor, 5 DR, -3 Dodge, 1 hardpoint, and 50 energy.
R1 (fighter mode): 0 Nat Armor, 5 DR, 2 dodge, 3 hardpoints but can only use in-built gatlings and giant revolvers, all non-rending non-power weapons.
Meggilot: +1 Nat armor, 0 DR, +2 Dodge, 2 Hardpoints. And 75 energy.

Anomander's uber class meanwhile throws 4 Hardpoints minimum to further increase its AC advantage or whatever it feel like. Sure, it technically loses one if it is hit by a crit. But the tier 1 Real Robots most probably lose all their arsenal when hit with a crit by virtue of dropping to 0 HP and exploding. The Barrelion may be tanky enough to survive, but again, only 1 hardpoint and 0 arsenal space.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on April 30, 2017, 10:00:04 PM
A crit doesn't deal extra damage to a mecha, it deals it to the pilot so it wouldn't destroy a real robot any faster. Two of those have DR 5 to help them take hits better. The pilot also has access to a Spirit, so he can Alert out of attacks anyway and gets a bonus feat that can be used on Regen to spam it every round.
Flight speed with good maneuverability is a Tier 3 arsenal accessory.
They all come with their own weapons while the mecha prototype has access to its prototype weapon and arsenal weapons only for which it must pay extra to remove the volatile effect.

@CKirk: Since I'm currently on it, might as well implement some changes I've had in mind. The engineer no longer acquires maneuvers by default but now gets a breakthrough every level.
Its breakthroughs have a maneuver learning option that can be equipped by a Mecha Prototype using arsenal space and a hardpoint per stance.
Your player may well keep the previous system if he prefers and you do not mind. Especially if his character is already on par with the others, including the AC nerf.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on May 01, 2017, 06:35:02 AM
A crit doesn't deal extra damage to a mecha, it deals it to the pilot so it wouldn't destroy a real robot any faster.
Despite being a machine, mechas are vulnerable to critical hits due to having complex internal structures.
Damage taken by the mecha is absorbed by the mecha's own HP, never by the pilot, unless the attack was a sucessfull critical hit. In that case, the pilot takes the amount of damage that would have been dealt if not for the critical hit, on top of the mecha taking the critical damage.
My mechas have been vulnerable to  crits since pretty much the start.

And with that I conclude the rest of your post is just more atomic banana logic and I won't waste another second with this issue.

EDIT: But as a reminder, mechas taking (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=9809.msg169315#msg169315) extra damage from criticals (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=9809.msg170345#msg170345) is something that already happened in the first battle of the mecha campaign in this very forums that may very well literally be the first game anyone played with this sytem.

But anomander's atomic banana logic simply trumps all.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on May 01, 2017, 08:17:54 AM
Having a bad day or something? When you make a mistake I don't jump on you guns blazing over it.
My bad for that mistake. I didn't suffer from one so the part about it applying to the pilot is what stuck and I should have checked. That considered, the cit-disabling was to be a penalty similar to volatile so it will be subject to it on the same level,  sharing the 50% chance to be rendered useless when receiving damage and the crit thing will automatically do so since you cannot really roll a 20 when using one.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on May 02, 2017, 08:27:07 PM
Having a bad day or something? When you make a mistake I don't jump on you guns blazing over it.
My bad for that mistake. I didn't suffer from one so the part about it applying to the pilot is what stuck and I should have checked.
Having a really bad day? Because your memory keeps failing (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=9809.msg309052#msg309052) and you can't be bothered to check.

Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on May 02, 2017, 10:46:05 PM
Mao is immune to crits. She's a construct.
Part of having every level in fusion golem. Day's been awesome, still. Hope tomorrow is better for you and you get civil again. Not sure why you're getting worked up over so little. Sorry if I triggered something sensitive.  :-\
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on May 10, 2017, 02:02:28 AM
Quote
-Any special senses/radars granted by Arsenal Options/Super Pilot upgrades/Einst/Peace Princess/Support Staff work in space, otherwise they don't. No exceptions allowed, no matter how specific.

How does that work? The void of space prevents Blindsense, Blindsight, True Seeing, See Invis, every Detect spell, Telepathy, Mindsight, Lifesense, Low-light Vision, Darkvision, Tremorsense(when sitting on the outside of a spaceship/station/asteroid), etc etc etc?

Really? Is normal human vision literally the only thing allowed in space that isn't an option out of SRWD20?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on July 02, 2017, 12:03:07 PM
Should the Super Robot 'Special Attack' upgrade be able to apply to spells, to give Arcane Pilots a reason to take it?

Also: How is a GM supposed to stop Strike+Soul+Squad Breaker? It applies absurd damage to basically the entire board. If the player wins init, the bad guys can't even use spirits to stop it.

Edit: Also, if Strike applies to all attacks in a maneuver, should it also apply to all attacks in an iterative attack routine?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on July 02, 2017, 11:35:36 PM
Quote
-Any special senses/radars granted by Arsenal Options/Super Pilot upgrades/Einst/Peace Princess/Support Staff work in space, otherwise they don't. No exceptions allowed, no matter how specific.

How does that work? The void of space prevents Blindsense, Blindsight, True Seeing, See Invis, every Detect spell, Telepathy, Mindsight, Lifesense, Low-light Vision, Darkvision, Tremorsense(when sitting on the outside of a spaceship/station/asteroid), etc etc etc?

Really? Is normal human vision literally the only thing allowed in space that isn't an option out of SRWD20?
That's the idea pretty much. Space is mysterious and mostly unknown, great place for hiding when you don't want to be found. Also allowes secret bases inside asteroids and smuggling and whatnot.

Should the Super Robot 'Special Attack' upgrade be able to apply to spells, to give Arcane Pilots a reason to take it?
Fair enough, done.

Also: How is a GM supposed to stop Strike+Soul+Squad Breaker? It applies absurd damage to basically the entire board. If the player wins init, the bad guys can't even use spirits to stop it.
-With Spirit Regen you can easily keep Alert up all the time as a Real Robot or Invulnerability as a Super Robot with some picks of Soul of the Machine.
-Defend and Defensive Support can both be used even if you're flat-footed.
-Make sure your army is not all standing out in the open simultaneously.
-Make sure your army is moving around inside battleships that will absorb eat the nova strike.

Edit: Also, if Strike applies to all attacks in a maneuver, should it also apply to all attacks in an iterative attack routine?
No, only if the attacks are simultaneous, which usually only happens with multi-target stuff.

Also applied the changes that had been agreed on the temporary forums.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on July 03, 2017, 12:57:02 AM
I think that's a bizarre standard to apply to senses.

Just stop them from being amplified in space (though honestly darkvision and see invisibility shouldn't turn off just because "space", that's cheap) rather than random sensory deprivation.

Particularly darkvision shouldn't be negated given its near-ubiquity.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: YuweaCurtis on July 03, 2017, 09:21:30 AM
Sorry if this has already been asked, but are the size super upgrades permanent or can it change? I'm guessing the former but had to be sure.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on July 03, 2017, 10:34:40 AM
I think that's a bizarre standard to apply to senses.

Just stop them from being amplified in space (though honestly darkvision and see invisibility shouldn't turn off just because "space", that's cheap) rather than random sensory deprivation.

Particularly darkvision shouldn't be negated given its near-ubiquity.

Well.......I can't say I would agree with Os on this one, but I guess I can understand where he's going with that answer. I guess it's kinda like putting that d&d fantasy magic spin on the whole empty void of space thing. Though that's kind of more like giving all of space the qualities of a black hole.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on July 03, 2017, 10:38:34 AM
Space is also quite well lit when you don't have entire planets in the way. When you do, I don't see why darkvision would be useless.

It only has an effective range of 20MU anyway, if I'm converting right AND you have 120' darkvision.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on July 03, 2017, 10:42:42 AM
Though most people have only 60ft darkvision. And you're right. So darkvision would already be useless in space. Regular vision would be the most useful non-special sense.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on July 03, 2017, 10:43:19 AM
My point is that "It's dark!" shouldn't hold water if it's right in front of you. :P
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on July 03, 2017, 11:07:28 AM
Sorry if this has already been asked, but are the size super upgrades permanent or can it change? I'm guessing the former but had to be sure.
Permanent, but Transform has a clause to allow you to change sizes if you take both upgrades.

My point is that "It's dark!" shouldn't hold water if it's right in front of you.
-The only signal that can go through space are lightwaves due to the fact they produce their own medium to move thanks to their electromagnetic field.
-Darkvision however specifically doesn't give a single shit about lightwaves.  We're not sure what it is, but we know it's completely independent from lightwaves since darkvision works in places without a single photon to sink your eyes on. 
-Thus, the vacuum of space doesn't give a single shit about darkvision either. Otherwise it wouldn't be vacuum and all the catgirls die. And catgirls are non-negotiable.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: YuweaCurtis on July 03, 2017, 11:11:51 AM
So I could change size without changing form? Cause that's all I'm looking for.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on July 03, 2017, 11:17:43 AM
Eh, if we go back to 2E and various extra-game materials, darkvision is more thermal imaging than anything else. No reason it wouldn't work in space, as it's still operating on photons.

And if we're going to get really technical, there's a a very dilute gaseous vapour in space and any particle emissions are going to be more effective.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on July 04, 2017, 06:14:29 PM
From the feats thread:

Quote
You gain Telepathy 20 mu plus 5 feet per Pilot level

Mixed scales.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on July 05, 2017, 01:47:30 PM
So I could change size without changing form? Cause that's all I'm looking for.
Added Irregular Scale upgrade option.

Eh, if we go back to 2E and various extra-game materials, darkvision is more thermal imaging than anything else. No reason it wouldn't work in space, as it's still operating on photons.
2e didn't have darkvision, it had infravision which specifically didn't work in cold stuff. Either way that was 2e, it's not my priority making this system compatible with older editions. Or what, should I make THACO progressions for everything? Non-weapon proficiencies?

And if we're going to get really technical, there's a a very dilute gaseous vapour in space and any particle emissions are going to be more effective.
What part of "space vacuum is good enough so that planets/comets/stars keep stable orbits for millions of years" didn't you understand?

Either way I would like to be there a reason for players to pick electronic sensors once in a blue moon (aka fighting in space instead of land/atmosphere/water), otherwise it's "screw radars, I have imbasight trollolol" time all the time.

From the feats thread:

Quote
You gain Telepathy 20 mu plus 5 feet per Pilot level

Mixed scales.
Fixed, thanks.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on July 06, 2017, 11:15:25 PM
-The only signal that can go through space are lightwaves due to the fact they produce their own medium to move thanks to their electromagnetic field.
Actually just about anything can be sent through space. For example, carrier pigeons can be thrown from the moon and hit a base on Neptune if you wanted.

Really all forms of radiation tends to work just fine, mass-less or not, so for example you can still see a human's bioluminescence, or use a thermometer to track heat, or put water in a glass chamber full of wires as a crude gravity sensor. Through Darkvision allows you to see even in a true vacuum at absolute zero, ie no stray photons or even atomic movement, but whatevs.

What part of "space vacuum is good enough so that planets/comets/stars keep stable orbits for millions of years" didn't you understand?
I'm not astrophysicist but I'm pretty sure it is balance of gravitational forces and momentum. Like satellites are technically in a state of constantly falling at a controlled rate, they simultaneously chase after Earth's gravitational field as it hurls around Sol while centripetal forces generated by spinning around the Earth's gravitational field are held as close to a near match. That sound about right? I think it is.

Either way I would like to be there a reason for players to pick electronic sensors once in a blue moon (aka fighting in space instead of land/atmosphere/water), otherwise it's "screw radars, I have imbasight trollolol" time all the time.
Blue moon?

Throwing an Elf into a Pilot's seat gives him a 60mu range but imposes up to a -6 penalty to Spot Checks to do so and it's still subject to illusions & fog. Spend one Hardpoint and you can flawlessly detect anyone in 60mu off the lowest Arsenal upgrade and you get a sweet +1 to damage rolls too. Heck by the second level of Arsenal you start ignoring walls too, I'd think it's pretty hard to have a hidden asteroid base if the doorway pings everyone's scanners once they are within 120mu or less.

Point being, the upgrades are strictly better than what D&D offers anyway. Of course someone is going to want them.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Archon on July 07, 2017, 10:21:27 AM

Blue moon?


A blue moon is when you have two full moons in the same month, I.E. A very rare occurrence.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Fzzr on July 07, 2017, 07:20:31 PM
Space is a near-absolute void; it's only hard to see things because in space scale everything is so very far away.

There's no reason why a natural or or extraordinary sense of the pilot should impeded by space, but nor should they be scaled up with the mecha by default. They still just come from the eyes/senses of the pilot. The one exception I can think of is if the mecha has systems to channel such abilities.

So, I propose that special senses *do* work, but without mecha scaling applied by default. Thus a 60ft darkvision is now a 10mu one. Extraordinary senses can be scaled to mecha by some means within the system. Perhaps magic-based mecha get that by default? A one-point Super Upgrade, sorta like Amplifier? Whatever makes sense. Still a benefit, but not nearly as much. Radars and the like are still almost always better than extending such senses.

Edited for clarity on paragraph 3



Also hi, I managed to activate my MMB account =D
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on July 07, 2017, 10:06:03 PM
A blue moon is when you have two full moons in the same month, I.E. A very rare occurrence.
I know what he meant, and my point was it's not a rare occurrence due to the mechanical superiority of it.

In a nut shell, Osl's homebrew has two major deals to it. First is the easy in plain sight thing of being horribly borked compared to D&D's scale but the often uncaught second thing is his newer stuff is even more insane than his older stuff. The sensors are fairly new, only a couple of things have come out after them, so right now they are some of the most powerful options you can take. Like for example if you're level 14 you have 56 upgrade points or for 0.01% of your choices you can pick up +3d6~+4d6 Sneak Attack and a form of extended Blindsight and he's out to nerf every form of senses out there making them a forced mandatory option "just in case" you're not picking his new favorite stuff.

Also hi, I managed to activate my MMB account =D
Sup, welcome to MMF (or maybe MMX?).
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on July 07, 2017, 11:04:53 PM
Also hi, I managed to activate my MMB account =D
Sup, welcome to MMF (or maybe MMX?).

I've heard MMX, mostly.

Anyway, I'm curious as to the state of Oslecamo's campaign under this system, because I'd like confirmation that the one I'm playing isn't the only one  :P
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on July 07, 2017, 11:55:11 PM
Also hi, I managed to activate my MMB account =D
Sup, welcome to MMF (or maybe MMX?).

I've heard MMX, mostly.

Anyway, I'm curious as to the state of Oslecamo's campaign under this system, because I'd like confirmation that the one I'm playing isn't the only one  :P

It lives! It is also slowness incarnate, but that's nothing new.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: RickyRedhsirt on July 08, 2017, 02:14:01 AM
Just stopping by and saying hello. I've been playing your system for the past few months now with some other posters and wanted to say thanks for everything so far. I don't think of myself as experienced with PF/3.5 systems as my colleagues but I try my best.

I'm not one to usually ask questions, but if anything comes up I'll post it.

Again, Thanks for creating this!
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Fzzr on July 08, 2017, 02:38:08 PM
Nice nerf on Strike!
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Fzzr on July 14, 2017, 03:00:43 PM
Hey Oslecamo,

Looking at the new Android ACF for Battleship Captain, I find it pretty underpowered. They essentially lose an entire class feature (Officers) with no replacement. I have a number of suggestions as to what could replace that feature.


My main suggestion is: “Instead of experienced Officers, the Android gains advanced cyberwarfare capabilities. Each time the Android would gain an Officer, they instead gain any three Internet Explorer maneuvers which they would otherwise be qualified for based on their level. (So 3 total at level 6, 6 total at level 12). They may trade in all the maneuvers gained from this feature at levels 8, 12, 16, and 20.

Once per round they may use one of the maneuvers they gained from this feature while paying 50% of the energy cost. They may only use a maneuver when they would otherwise have been able to use it, but doing so counts as a free action.”


These parts are optional/alternative if you think more or different parts are necessary:


The reasons for each change are as follows:
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on July 14, 2017, 09:01:38 PM
I felt like it was underpowered but didn't really know what to give in return. Extra energy sounds better, since you need to run less life support and stuff.

Removed the int for cha from the ACF and made it an android feat, Cold Calculations, that also works for Bluff/Diplomacy/Intimidate besides Terror Tactics and Ships Full of Hope, plus Peace Princess for good measure. 

Just stopping by and saying hello. I've been playing your system for the past few months now with some other posters and wanted to say thanks for everything so far. I don't think of myself as experienced with PF/3.5 systems as my colleagues but I try my best.

I'm not one to usually ask questions, but if anything comes up I'll post it.

Again, Thanks for creating this!

You're welcome. :)
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Fzzr on July 15, 2017, 03:51:20 AM
Now I feel silly for coming up with all those crazy ideas. Well, thanks for improving it!
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on July 16, 2017, 01:23:08 PM
Quote
Soul of the Machine: The main pilot's maximum spirit points are increased by 5 and at the start of their turn they recover 1 spirit point.

This looks like a super pilot upgrade that's meant to be taken more than once. It's not very useful otherwise.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on July 16, 2017, 02:03:32 PM
This looks like a super pilot upgrade that's meant to be taken more than once. It's not very useful otherwise.
By default they stack.
Quote
Each level of the Super Pilot class gives four Upgrade points. Those upgrade points can be spent in any of the following options. You cannot pick each option more times than  your 1+(1/2 pilot level). Some options demand a certain level before they can be taken, as noted on the respective entry. You must spend all upgrade points as soon as you get them. If an upgrade doesnt have a listed cost, it simply costs 1 point.
Also Osl just ran through my sheet a month before MMB went down looking for every error he could and I used it as a stacking upgrade which didn't get flagged.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on July 16, 2017, 02:13:48 PM
I thought they had to be noted to stack, that must've changed at some point.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on July 16, 2017, 02:25:37 PM
I thought they had to be noted to stack, that must've changed at some point.
The required noted to stack is D&D's base rules, it's just the Upgrades override those.

What you may be thinking of is how several Upgrades can only be taken once per four levels (like growth), or their costs increase (like hyperdimensional storage), or can only be taken once (like great).
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on July 16, 2017, 02:36:22 PM
I mean that I think I remember an earlier revision saying that they only stacked if noted?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on July 16, 2017, 08:15:44 PM
Mysterious Power and Nanomachines are still pretty huge traps. Take 9 upgrade points to get Reactor III or the healing, when for 10 you can get 4 hardpoints. One of which can easily be spent on a Reactor item. And the hardpoints will scale and can get changed out.

Since regeneration isn't the only way to restore HP, they're pretty bad alternatives--one you can get even if you go for arsenal access, ffs/
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on July 17, 2017, 10:21:34 AM
Nerfed hyperdimensional storage so that you must alternate picks between the extra arsenal and extra hardpoints.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on July 17, 2017, 11:19:00 AM
That still doesn't fix it. It's still a 1-point investment to get access to scaling Reactor accessories, and for 6 you can get that and repair kits and a weapon--or fill the second slot with whatever. It's 5 points to get Reactor II or Nanomachines II. Mysterious Power and Nanomachines are at their most viable before you can get better Arsenal gear... but at that point you don't have the huge energy demands or as much HP to regen.

MP and Nanomachines are simply not worth the cost; you have to invest more and more into them to get any sort of improvement, and in doing so you're losing access to spoiler after spoiler of other things.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on July 17, 2017, 12:03:45 PM
MP and Nanomachines are simply not worth the cost;
Yep.

You don't even need to discuss Osl's love to change Arsenal, just stop at something like Nanomachines. Like for example a level 10 with Spirit Regen will regenerate 30 spirit points over three rounds allowing them to use Refresh twice, healing a total of 20d10 (110 avg), and their robot's base HP is 105. Even if you attempt to shew things in favor of the Nanomachines, saying Plating x6 for 165hp, you still need to spend six upgrade points for 30% regen to match one Feat. You have better things to spend points on.

So tomorrow Spirit Regen will probably be nerfed, then Tek Soul after that.  ;)
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on July 17, 2017, 01:47:55 PM
That still doesn't fix it. It's still a 1-point investment to get access to scaling Reactor accessories, and for 6 you can get that and repair kits and a weapon--or fill the second slot with whatever. It's 5 points to get Reactor II or Nanomachines II. Mysterious Power and Nanomachines are at their most viable before you can get better Arsenal gear... but at that point you don't have the huge energy demands or as much HP to regen.

MP and Nanomachines are simply not worth the cost; you have to invest more and more into them to get any sort of improvement, and in doing so you're losing access to spoiler after spoiler of other things.

Made hyperdimensional storage unable to grab you hardpoints, although also granted super robots one hardpoint by default. Supers were never meant to spam acessories to start with.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on July 18, 2017, 12:49:01 AM
Damn. Now I have to go spend 1 hardpoint on my nanoarmor -.-
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on July 18, 2017, 01:07:58 AM
I was implying that the Super options need some sort of buff or cost decrease to be worth taking--or something like taking the size-linked upgrades and making them stackable but incompatible with arsenal stuff.

Not... leaving the Arsenal untouched and just hacking off access. This is a pretty direct nerf to Super Robots--because your own CF's are inferior to behind-level arsenal access, block said access. Carrot and stick needs some carrot.

I mean, the simple version is that if accessories were better than access to two upgrades--either the upgrades need a buff, the accessories need a nerf, or the upgrades are overcosted.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Fzzr on July 18, 2017, 03:57:34 AM
I agree with just slightly buffing nanomachines and mysterious power. The main concern is that they're an inefficient use of points. I would suggest just reducing them to one point each time, no matter how many times you take them. They should still be 1 per 4HD and mutually exclusive with each other and hyper storage. You'd still have to give something up to take them, but it would no longer be an obviously bad trade. Hyper Storage (before changes) adds more flexibility (weapons and hardpoints both being swappable) than nanomachines and mysterious power, so it makes sense to have it be more expensive.

Regarding Supers, Arsenal, and Hardpoints: A Real Pilot can get a non-generic mecha with four hardpoints at level 7 (Alteisen, Weissritter, Wildschwein, and Valhawk all have four). A Super starting with 0 hardpoints and with hyper storage IV to get four hardpoints has to be level 16 and deal with an opportunity cost of ten upgrade points - two and a half levels worth. They would also be giving up access to almost every non-special arsenal weapon. Supers already can't match any real-based class for arsenal/hardpoint access - I don't think it's necessary to cut them off entirely.

Edit: Okay I did the math again and that's still not a good trade. Accessories are still so good as to make even a single point of hyper better than nanomachines or mysterious power very quickly. Thinking some more.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: YuweaCurtis on July 18, 2017, 04:39:14 PM
Yes, please don't leave the Hyperdimensional Storage nerfed >.>;
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on July 19, 2017, 07:27:46 AM
We already tried always-1-point nano-machines and mysterious power. That's how their original version was. Everybody maximized them ASAP. That's why they got nerfed. Now they're not an auto-take, but they're still an option.

I was implying that the Super options need some sort of buff or cost decrease to be worth taking--or something like taking the size-linked upgrades and making them stackable but incompatible with arsenal stuff.

Not... leaving the Arsenal untouched and just hacking off access. This is a pretty direct nerf to Super Robots--because your own CF's are inferior to behind-level arsenal access, block said access. Carrot and stick needs some carrot.
Every super robot now gets a free hardpoint just for existing. I believe that's called a buff, not a nerf.

What gets shafted is the hardpoint spam path. And again, super robots aren't supposed to be about spamming hardpoints around here. I included hyperdimensional storage first as more of a curiosity, but if it's become the must-take upgrade, then it rightfully deserves to be nerfed to the ground.

I mean, the simple version is that if accessories were better than access to two upgrades--either the upgrades need a buff, the accessories need a nerf, or the upgrades are overcosted.

If one upgrade is so much better than the others, it's both fairer and easier to nerf said upgrade than trying to buff everything else and end up with a power creep race.

Plus hey, if it's the acessories that are imba, then why is the poor Real Pilot so less popular than the Super Pilot?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on July 19, 2017, 09:17:00 AM
I was implying that the Super options need some sort of buff or cost decrease to be worth taking--or something like taking the size-linked upgrades and making them stackable but incompatible with arsenal stuff.

Not... leaving the Arsenal untouched and just hacking off access. This is a pretty direct nerf to Super Robots--because your own CF's are inferior to behind-level arsenal access, block said access. Carrot and stick needs some carrot.
Every super robot now gets a free hardpoint just for existing. I believe that's called a buff, not a nerf.

What gets shafted is the hardpoint spam path. And again, super robots aren't supposed to be about spamming hardpoints around here. I included hyperdimensional storage first as more of a curiosity, but if it's become the must-take upgrade, then it rightfully deserves to be nerfed to the ground.

It became must-take because, comparatively, mysterious power and nanomachines are terribly costed. Mysterious Power in particular's the worst about it--all it did was let you get Reactor III earlier for a huge premium. Accessories don't need to offer much to be a better option--and since there's other sources of healing than regen and arsenal stuff includes healing anyway, there was no point in taking those two upgrades because they didn't offer anything you couldn't get some other way for less. And if for some reason you didn't want reactor or regen, then hyperdimensional storage was obviously a better use of points because it gave you anything else.

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I mean, the simple version is that if accessories were better than access to two upgrades--either the upgrades need a buff, the accessories need a nerf, or the upgrades are overcosted.

If one upgrade is so much better than the others, it's both fairer and easier to nerf said upgrade than trying to buff everything else and end up with a power creep race.

Plus hey, if it's the acessories that are imba, then why is the poor Real Pilot so less popular than the Super Pilot?

I'm going to go with "step one: using arcane magic is tied to super robots" and "less Gundam fans". For practicality's sake I would probably have gone the other way, but I like Super Robots more from an anime perspective. That and my #1 priority was "get big". :lmao
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on July 19, 2017, 12:44:06 PM
I was implying that the Super options need some sort of buff or cost decrease to be worth taking--or something like taking the size-linked upgrades and making them stackable but incompatible with arsenal stuff.

Not... leaving the Arsenal untouched and just hacking off access. This is a pretty direct nerf to Super Robots--because your own CF's are inferior to behind-level arsenal access, block said access. Carrot and stick needs some carrot.
Every super robot now gets a free hardpoint just for existing. I believe that's called a buff, not a nerf.

What gets shafted is the hardpoint spam path. And again, super robots aren't supposed to be about spamming hardpoints around here. I included hyperdimensional storage first as more of a curiosity, but if it's become the must-take upgrade, then it rightfully deserves to be nerfed to the ground.

It became must-take because, comparatively, mysterious power and nanomachines are terribly costed. Mysterious Power in particular's the worst about it--all it did was let you get Reactor III earlier for a huge premium. Accessories don't need to offer much to be a better option--and since there's other sources of healing than regen and arsenal stuff includes healing anyway, there was no point in taking those two upgrades because they didn't offer anything you couldn't get some other way for less. And if for some reason you didn't want reactor or regen, then hyperdimensional storage was obviously a better use of points because it gave you anything else.
Getting an ability 13 levels earlier than you could normally (3rd level with upgrades, vs 16th level with delayed super acessory) is worth a good premium, yes.

As for healing, the main advantage of nanomachines is not having strings attached. Spirits cost spirit points (and you only learn 6 of those) and repair kits have limited uses before you need to return to a friendly base. They're better for burst healins and that's intended, while nanomachines is something that's always "on".

So the real problem here is the massive versatility granted by hyper storage, and that's not really something any other super upgrade can hope to keep up with. Thus the only pratical solution is removing the versatility of hyper storage itself, not engage in a power creep race where nanomachines and mysterious power eclipse every other recovery option now and forever.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on July 19, 2017, 01:44:10 PM
It's not worth that much a premium--over two entire levels' worth of upgrades? That's the worst part of them. It's always going to be a pretty overboard investment. And once you get to the point where the same ability is available for a vastly lower cost, you've gone and shot yourself in the foot.

Well, there's your spirits and the finite supply of repair packs... any support in the form of ship captains, other people carrying repair packs, and any other health restoration that comes along, ever. They also tend to heal more than nanomachines do, which seems to tip things in their favour if you actually need the healing right now. Nanomachines are more like a big DR buff, but that's a completely separate issue than "is it worth it as healing"--and even then, actual DR would be better as you don't die if you take fatal damage first.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on July 19, 2017, 03:29:49 PM
They're better for burst healins and that's intended, while nanomachines is something that's always "on".
That was WotC's rational to never handing out Fast Healing or Regeneration, healing 1hp every minute could super dangerously lead people to starting Encounters with full hit points oh my god!

But you hand Fast Healing and Regeneration out like candy under the rational because most people already start out with full HP going into Encounters anyway. Healing in combat sucks and nothing but high bursts can help (see also your packs & spirit rates). So why are you now reneging on that stance?

Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on July 20, 2017, 04:46:31 AM
It's not worth that much a premium--over two entire levels' worth of upgrades? That's the worst part of them. It's always going to be a pretty overboard investment. And once you get to the point where the same ability is available for a vastly lower cost, you've gone and shot yourself in the foot.
A ship captain can change a super's upgrades with a feat.

Besides a pure super can only take one acessory now. Why burn it in something you can take with upgrade points?

Well, there's your spirits and the finite supply of repair packs... any support in the form of ship captains, other people carrying repair packs, and any other health restoration that comes along, ever. They also tend to heal more than nanomachines do, which seems to tip things in their favour if you actually need the healing right now.

They heal more because they cost more. The ship captain/minions could be buffing offensive output instead of playing healbot. The super has a single hardpoint so go ahead and burn it on a repair kit. But you have 80 upgrade points and only a fraction of those can be spent on offensive power. Nanomachines isn't supposed to be the ultimate defense, it's supposed to be something that stacks with other defenses while not costing actual spirits or demanding others to babysit you.

Nanomachines are more like a big DR buff, but that's a completely separate issue than "is it worth it as healing"--and even then, actual DR would be better as you don't die if you take fatal damage first.

Again, you can take nanomachines on top of DR.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on July 20, 2017, 06:51:56 AM
How does Enduring Code and Pilot Repair interact with Super Nanoarmors?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on July 20, 2017, 09:14:24 AM
It's not worth that much a premium--over two entire levels' worth of upgrades? That's the worst part of them. It's always going to be a pretty overboard investment. And once you get to the point where the same ability is available for a vastly lower cost, you've gone and shot yourself in the foot.
A ship captain can change a super's upgrades with a feat.

Besides a pure super can only take one acessory now. Why burn it in something you can take with upgrade points?

Well, there's your spirits and the finite supply of repair packs... any support in the form of ship captains, other people carrying repair packs, and any other health restoration that comes along, ever. They also tend to heal more than nanomachines do, which seems to tip things in their favour if you actually need the healing right now.

They heal more because they cost more. The ship captain/minions could be buffing offensive output instead of playing healbot. The super has a single hardpoint so go ahead and burn it on a repair kit. But you have 80 upgrade points and only a fraction of those can be spent on offensive power. Nanomachines isn't supposed to be the ultimate defense, it's supposed to be something that stacks with other defenses while not costing actual spirits or demanding others to babysit you.

Nanomachines are more like a big DR buff, but that's a completely separate issue than "is it worth it as healing"--and even then, actual DR would be better as you don't die if you take fatal damage first.

Again, you can take nanomachines on top of DR.

"Why use it on something you can get with upgrade points"? Because unless you have maxed out everything else you might conceivably want, it's still ridiculously expensive. You're giving it a cost equal to +9 AC, along with all the other effects of 9 upgrade points depending how you go about distributing them. If you can use that one accessory on Reactor, that's a lot more points to distribute elsewhere.

Yes, you can take nanomachines on top of DR, but my point is that unlike DR they only kick in so long as you survive with greater 0 HP in the first place, and if it's a close-run thing, that's a pretty good sign that nanomachines won't be providing enough healing anyway. Unless you're already taking scratch damage, it's overcosted.

So unless you spend a lot of points (and energy) sunk into that barrier, nanomachines are the most unreliable healing in combat. But the barrier's level gated, shares the same escalating costs, and takes a huge chunk of energy. Which reminds me... the Arsenal IV option: half damage for 5 energy? Again, big premium--and you can get higher reduction, it's true--and four times the cost to use.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on July 20, 2017, 05:47:14 PM
Besides a pure super can only take one acessory now. Why burn it in something you can take with upgrade points?
Because Osl has demanded that you do.

Like take you other recent bs nerf, how senses work in space. Super Robots get Blindsense, this does nothing to negate Concealment while Real Robots get Blindsight which flat out negates Concealment bonuses. Likewise say you have a 500ft radar, a 20th level Super Robot that's maxed out Undetectable gets spotted 170mu out while a 1st level Real Robot with Yksvoknym Particles Generator can't be spotted until he's 83mu away.

Weapons are crap too. a Super get 4 points, it's not even enough to buy most weapons so they get stuck with two shitty 1d10 punches that you can quote on quote upgrade by spending multiple upgrade points per single property with a only a couple d6s by level 20 if you're willing to take Size penalties to attack rolls and AC so you miss more and die faster. So the have to take Hyperdimensional Storage which means you also have give up both energy & hp regeneration. But a Real? They can take better weapons and Energy regeneration and still pick up methods to replenish HP at the same time.

Except they don't actually need to, screw RD's example. At level 14 a Real Robot can nab a Linked Remote Slashers for two 20d6 guns (that come with four free properties) and the Mirror-Image Projector. The projector reduces damage by 50% (by 1/2 of attacks missing you) but it doesn't cost any energy to use and no Super Robot can overcome it without dedicating it's one and only Hardpoint to countering one method of defense.

And so and so on.
So I expect to see a lot of Arsenal/Accessory nerfs over this week.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on July 20, 2017, 08:18:18 PM
How does Enduring Code and Pilot Repair interact with Super Nanoarmors?
Eeerr, they work normally? Enduring Code would mean that when your super nanoarmor reaches 0/negative HP you can either remain motionless while it quickly repair or take it off for acting and then putting back on when you're done for it to quickly repair itself. Pilot Repair, well, grants regeneration to the pilot, and if you're killed while outside, putting it on would patch you up. You may want to combine it with sentient in that case since it's kinda harder for other people to make you don your super nanoarmor than is placing them inside the super's cockpit.

"Why use it on something you can get with upgrade points"? Because unless you have maxed out everything else you might conceivably want, it's still ridiculously expensive. You're giving it a cost equal to +9 AC, along with all the other effects of 9 upgrade points depending how you go about distributing them. If you can use that one accessory on Reactor, that's a lot more points to distribute elsewhere.
Ah, but you can't just buy +9 AC right away. At least not until you're 16th level. Or 8th level if you split between Agility and Plating.

Yes, you can take nanomachines on top of DR, but my point is that unlike DR they only kick in so long as you survive with greater 0 HP in the first place, and if it's a close-run thing, that's a pretty good sign that nanomachines won't be providing enough healing anyway. Unless you're already taking scratch damage, it's overcosted.
And exactly how many attacks out there straight out ignore DR? Nanomachines at least work against anything that deals damage.

You may want to check the new upgrades too.

So unless you spend a lot of points (and energy) sunk into that barrier, nanomachines are the most unreliable healing in combat. But the barrier's level gated, shares the same escalating costs, and takes a huge chunk of energy. Which reminds me... the Arsenal IV option: half damage for 5 energy? Again, big premium--and you can get higher reduction, it's true--and four times the cost to use.

Absolute barrier also gives you immunity to an element/property and ignoring certain force effects and ignoring other barriers in melee.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on July 20, 2017, 08:34:52 PM
Absolute barrier also gives you immunity to an element/property and ignoring certain force effects and ignoring other barriers in melee.
Not really, it costs 8 points to ignore another Super that only invested four points into it and it only functions against a Real Pilot 6th level or lower. To fully ignore all walls in melee a Super needs to spend 16 Upgrade points into Absolute Barrier and have 20 energy so it's not like Defensive Weapons or other Immediate-Action attacks can benefit from it.

But on the other hand, a 1st level Real Pilot can pick up Close Canceller which ignores all walls of every level instantly irregardless of current energy levels.

Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on July 20, 2017, 08:35:44 PM
Hm. I'll have to think about that, but two questions: when Enduring Code and Pilot Repair are combined, does the pilot die on their negative HP or the Mecha's negative HP? I'm not sure how likely that is, but...

Number two: why does the Great One upgrade that gives you a damage bonus make you so slow? Seriously, starting with a 30MU base speed and taking maximum agility, you need to be at least level 10 to once again move at 30 MU. This isn't really offset in any way so as to not be horrifically inconvenient, since short of being a multiclass real pilot you don't really have much in the way of ranged attacks to benefit it and literally every other mecha has a faster movement speed.

Though Enhanced Code seems to wrap around to "only technically useful", in that you're most likely a sitting duck at negative HP who can't take actions even if those actions have nothing to do with actually piloting said mecha.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on July 20, 2017, 09:15:50 PM
Hm. I'll have to think about that, but two questions: when Enduring Code and Pilot Repair are combined, does the pilot die on their negative HP or the Mecha's negative HP? I'm not sure how likely that is, but...
Mecha's negative HP.

Number two: why does the Great One upgrade that gives you a damage bonus make you so slow? Seriously, starting with a 30MU base speed and taking maximum agility, you need to be at least level 10 to once again move at 30 MU. This isn't really offset in any way so as to not be horrifically inconvenient, since short of being a multiclass real pilot you don't really have much in the way of ranged attacks to benefit it and literally every other mecha has a faster movement speed.
Well it's precisely meant to represent those big slow lumbering robots that hit really hard.

Though Enhanced Code seems to wrap around to "only technically useful", in that you're most likely a sitting duck at negative HP who can't take actions even if those actions have nothing to do with actually piloting said mecha.
Yeah, having your cockpit half-crushed around you with sparks flying off all over will make it hard to concentrate on anything else unless you exit.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on July 20, 2017, 09:23:30 PM
Number two: why does the Great One upgrade that gives you a damage bonus make you so slow? Seriously, starting with a 30MU base speed and taking maximum agility, you need to be at least level 10 to once again move at 30 MU. This isn't really offset in any way so as to not be horrifically inconvenient, since short of being a multiclass real pilot you don't really have much in the way of ranged attacks to benefit it and literally every other mecha has a faster movement speed.
Well it's precisely meant to represent those big slow lumbering robots that hit really hard.

See, that seems odd, since Super Robots seem to generally come in three main flavours: sheer overkill, durable as hell but not fast, or fast and hitting really hard but not so durable--Mazinger and Getter Robo exemplify the second two, respectively.

And that still doesn't help with making you the slowest thing in the system bar none. Damage bonuses don't seem useful if you're the worst placed to ever use them.

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Though Enhanced Code seems to wrap around to "only technically useful", in that you're most likely a sitting duck at negative HP who can't take actions even if those actions have nothing to do with actually piloting said mecha.
Yeah, having your cockpit half-crushed around you with sparks flying off all over will make it hard to concentrate on anything else unless you exit.

... then what's the point? You're a sitting duck unless you only took just enough damage to heal out of it. Any lower and you're completely wasting your turn even more than being destroyed would be--with maybe the bonus that you forestall destruction should the fight end before you're attacked again. Since you can't use any defensive abilities and you're left flat-footed at the same time, that's not going to happen.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on July 20, 2017, 10:20:20 PM
Number two: why does the Great One upgrade that gives you a damage bonus make you so slow? Seriously, starting with a 30MU base speed and taking maximum agility, you need to be at least level 10 to once again move at 30 MU. This isn't really offset in any way so as to not be horrifically inconvenient, since short of being a multiclass real pilot you don't really have much in the way of ranged attacks to benefit it and literally every other mecha has a faster movement speed.
Well it's precisely meant to represent those big slow lumbering robots that hit really hard.

See, that seems odd, since Super Robots seem to generally come in three main flavours: sheer overkill, durable as hell but not fast, or fast and hitting really hard but not so durable--Mazinger and Getter Robo exemplify the second two, respectively.

And that still doesn't help with making you the slowest thing in the system bar none. Damage bonuses don't seem useful if you're the worst placed to ever use them.
Something like Big O, extremely slow and extremely hard hitting.

I could tie movement penalty to durability, but then you become a glorified terrain feature as they can just run circles around you while ignoring you outright, whereas high damage output means you can reasonably threaten an area. Just make sure important allied things are inside said threatened area.

... then what's the point? You're a sitting duck unless you only took just enough damage to heal out of it. Any lower and you're completely wasting your turn even more than being destroyed would be--with maybe the bonus that you forestall destruction should the fight end before you're attacked again. Since you can't use any defensive abilities and you're left flat-footed at the same time, that's not going to happen.
A virtual 30% increase of your max HP isn't shabby at all if you ask me. And sitting one round of combat is pretty decent for a virtual 60% increase of max HP. Worst case scenario you're still forcing your enemy to waste more actions finishing your super robot off in which case you're fulfilling your tanking role pretty well.

And whatever happened to your army of repair bots all of a sudden? I would say they would be pretty happy for being able to patch your super robot from negative HP. :p
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on July 20, 2017, 10:29:33 PM
Number two: why does the Great One upgrade that gives you a damage bonus make you so slow? Seriously, starting with a 30MU base speed and taking maximum agility, you need to be at least level 10 to once again move at 30 MU. This isn't really offset in any way so as to not be horrifically inconvenient, since short of being a multiclass real pilot you don't really have much in the way of ranged attacks to benefit it and literally every other mecha has a faster movement speed.
Well it's precisely meant to represent those big slow lumbering robots that hit really hard.

See, that seems odd, since Super Robots seem to generally come in three main flavours: sheer overkill, durable as hell but not fast, or fast and hitting really hard but not so durable--Mazinger and Getter Robo exemplify the second two, respectively.

And that still doesn't help with making you the slowest thing in the system bar none. Damage bonuses don't seem useful if you're the worst placed to ever use them.
Something like Big O, extremely slow and extremely hard hitting.

I could tie movement penalty to durability, but then you become a glorified terrain feature as they can just run circles around you while ignoring you outright, whereas high damage output means you can reasonably threaten an area. Just make sure important allied things are inside said threatened area.

You have to take every level of agility to be able to put this to any use. Stop and think about that for a second. You're intending this to be strong and slow... and to use it at all you have to take every single speed-boosting level you can, which gives you dodge bonuses to AC to boot. And then you're still slower than everyone else and, if anybody can stay away, completely unable to project any sort of threat because you're so slow and bereft of range options.

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... then what's the point? You're a sitting duck unless you only took just enough damage to heal out of it. Any lower and you're completely wasting your turn even more than being destroyed would be--with maybe the bonus that you forestall destruction should the fight end before you're attacked again. Since you can't use any defensive abilities and you're left flat-footed at the same time, that's not going to happen.
A virtual 30% increase of your max HP isn't shabby at all if you ask me. And sitting one round of combat is pretty decent for a virtual 60% increase of max HP. Worst case scenario you're still forcing your enemy to waste more actions finishing your super robot off in which case you're fulfilling your tanking role pretty well.

And whatever happened to your army of repair bots all of a sudden? I would say they would be pretty happy for being able to patch your super robot from negative HP. :p

Well, 50% of them just got eliminated by rendering you unable to use spirits or take any action other than ejecting. Strictly speaking: yes, this is an upgrade over what came previously, but it's still worse than Die Hard. Hell, it's worth than vanilla "I am dying" as you can't take any action at all.

Serious question: why haven't you genericised both super and real robots so they have the same underlying chassis but a different allotment of arsenal stuff, and a selection of premade robots? It seems like it would be far easier to balance to just have mecha as one homogenous system than this bizarre split that just causes difficulty.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on July 20, 2017, 10:59:17 PM
Nanomachines/Mysterious Power seem to cost what they're worth to me. Reducing hardpoints for the Supers aren't limiting them all that much. Plus free hardpoint you don't even need to pay upgrades for. Supers already get plenty of upgrades that offer the equivalent of a hardpoint, such as extra spirits, flight, reactor and so on. Ideally, yes, you use the upgrades for those and keep the hardpoint for an advantage you cannot get otherwise. Or to save on some upgrade points at least until you get more upgrade points to spend on those.

Hard hitters being slow makes about as much sense as slow tanks. Bigass motherships/deathstar creeping in and shooting the doom laser.
Something that may make sense is for the big ones and similar single pick options (maybe not all of them, though) would be to have them get a toggle.
In the case of the slower damage-dealer, he could go around at normal speed until he activates the higher damage. The action to toggle could be significant enough to discourage using it freely, so a mecha could ride around normally until there is a fight and then switch to damage... but if the targets move around he has a hard time positioning himself strategically. Not being to toggle for a while could make more sense for those options that cannot really be reversed from so easily anyway, such as suddenly losing half your spirit points/hit points/energy. Still, just an idea.

Quote
... then what's the point? You're a sitting duck unless you only took just enough damage to heal out of it.
Aye, the first thought when seeing that upgrade was then, indeed, it actually gets you back into the fight if you heal enough to recover, kind of like DR allows you to survive the way healings normally don't. By itself it is already pretty nice. And even if your mecha cannot be back into the action for a few turns, it does indeed forces the attacker to pay attention to your mecha instead of other stuff, potentially wasting actions that are sorely needed to get rid of those that can still kick its ass. And even then he cannot fully ignore in case you get back in the fight. Strategically it is pretty useful.
If you leave the mecha, that's another target he may have to worry about, and even if the mecha doesn't get back up in time to continue the fight before it ends, you at least get to keep the same mecha for the next encounters. Better than the lower level replacement.

Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on July 20, 2017, 11:56:28 PM
Quote
... then what's the point? You're a sitting duck unless you only took just enough damage to heal out of it.
Aye, the first thought when seeing that upgrade was then, indeed, it actually gets you back into the fight if you heal enough to recover, kind of like DR allows you to survive the way healings normally don't. By itself it is already pretty nice. And even if your mecha cannot be back into the action for a few turns, it does indeed forces the attacker to pay attention to your mecha instead of other stuff, potentially wasting actions that are sorely needed to get rid of those that can still kick its ass. And even then he cannot fully ignore in case you get back in the fight. Strategically it is pretty useful.
If you leave the mecha, that's another target he may have to worry about, and even if the mecha doesn't get back up in time to continue the fight before it ends, you at least get to keep the same mecha for the next encounters. Better than the lower level replacement.

Have you been looking at the mecha damage recently? The first option isn't a concern and the second is hopeful.

And banking on synergy with sentient affecting enemy behaviour is a pretty optimistic 8-point minimum expenditure.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on July 21, 2017, 12:46:49 AM
Plus hey, if it's the acessories that are imba, then why is the poor Real Pilot so less popular than the Super Pilot?

Maybe in your campaign, but in the one I'm doing, we've got two 'reals' (one moon vanguard with mostly real levels and one engineer), a super, and a ship captain, with not a session going by without someone commenting how absurdly powerful reals are (I've already posted the numbers on how reals at top level are more durable and more damaging than supers and been dismissed, so I won't do so again).
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on July 21, 2017, 12:54:24 AM
Quote from: RD
Yes, you can take nanomachines on top of DR, but my point is that unlike DR they only kick in so long as you survive with greater 0 HP in the first place, and if it's a close-run thing, that's a pretty good sign that nanomachines won't be providing enough healing anyway. Unless you're already taking scratch damage, it's overcosted.
I'm not sure what your position on the first option is anymore. That upgrade makes it at least as good as DR now, which seemed to be a concern then.
Either way, it as at the very least worth as much as what you'd get for 1 upgrade point in most other options. Many upgrades are only good for certain builds anyway.

Quote
Quote
Plus hey, if it's the acessories that are imba, then why is the poor Real Pilot so less popular than the Super Pilot?
Maybe in your campaign
Might have something to do with your campaign not being gestalt and ours being one. Supers have a lot of potential when coupled with more class abilities.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on July 21, 2017, 01:03:51 AM
Quote from: RD
Yes, you can take nanomachines on top of DR, but my point is that unlike DR they only kick in so long as you survive with greater 0 HP in the first place, and if it's a close-run thing, that's a pretty good sign that nanomachines won't be providing enough healing anyway. Unless you're already taking scratch damage, it's overcosted.
I'm not sure what your position on the first option is anymore. That upgrade makes it at least as good as DR now, which seemed to be a concern then.
Either way, it as at the very least worth as much as what you'd get for 1 upgrade point in most other options. Many upgrades are only good for certain builds anyway.

It's not one upgrade point to be able to resurrect from zero HP--it's 6. It has a 5-point cost to access and those five points are pretty useless.

Quote
Quote
Quote
Plus hey, if it's the acessories that are imba, then why is the poor Real Pilot so less popular than the Super Pilot?
Maybe in your campaign
Might have something to do with your campaign not being gestalt and ours being one. Supers have a lot of potential when coupled with more class abAnilities.
[/quote]

Still waiting for a refresher on that as per the latest OOC. :P

Also I have to wholly reiterate that I have never picked Supers on their abilities, as it's always seemed better to go Real. I just like giant robots. And consistent size.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on July 21, 2017, 01:15:39 AM
Quote
It's not one upgrade point to be able to resurrect from zero HP--it's 6. It has a 5-point cost to access and those five points are pretty useless.
If that's how you feel about nanomachines, then it only makes your upgrade selection process a bit easier by simply putting them elsewhere. That upgrade itself costs only 1 upgrade point. I myself find them pretty useful for tanky builds.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on July 21, 2017, 01:28:03 AM
Quote
It's not one upgrade point to be able to resurrect from zero HP--it's 6. It has a 5-point cost to access and those five points are pretty useless.
If that's how you feel about nanomachines, then it only makes your upgrade selection process a bit easier by simply putting them elsewhere. That upgrade itself costs only 1 upgrade point. I myself find them pretty useful for tanky builds.

Given every other source of healing? Yes. Nanomachines are eh at best. So they're still a cost to "not dying but contributing nothing". Which, as acknowledged, is likely just sitting around.

Even trading just good weapon access doesn't make these worth the cost. Mysterious Power is still absurdly overpriced even if NM became useful, too.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on July 21, 2017, 01:41:58 AM
How does Enduring Code and Pilot Repair interact with Super Nanoarmors?
Eeerr, they work normally? Enduring Code would mean that when your super nanoarmor reaches 0/negative HP you can either remain motionless while it quickly repair or take it off for acting and then putting back on when you're done for it to quickly repair itself. Pilot Repair, well, grants regeneration to the pilot, and if you're killed while outside, putting it on would patch you up. You may want to combine it with sentient in that case since it's kinda harder for other people to make you don your super nanoarmor than is placing them inside the super's cockpit.

Oh, so Enduring Code allows your Regen from Nanomachines to keep running when at or below 0 hp? That's kinda nice.
But I wouldn't be allowed to move until above 0 hp? Not even Spirits can be used? I could see how that'd be tricky to use then...but in the case of specifically Nanoarmors, that's a really nice option compared to the usual having to wait 2d12 hours when it gets destroyed.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on July 21, 2017, 01:44:41 AM
How does Enduring Code and Pilot Repair interact with Super Nanoarmors?
Eeerr, they work normally? Enduring Code would mean that when your super nanoarmor reaches 0/negative HP you can either remain motionless while it quickly repair or take it off for acting and then putting back on when you're done for it to quickly repair itself. Pilot Repair, well, grants regeneration to the pilot, and if you're killed while outside, putting it on would patch you up. You may want to combine it with sentient in that case since it's kinda harder for other people to make you don your super nanoarmor than is placing them inside the super's cockpit.

Oh, so Enduring Code allows your Regen from Nanomachines to keep running when at or below 0 hp? That's kinda nice.
But I wouldn't be allowed to move until above 0 hp? Not even Spirits can be used? I could see how that'd be tricky to use then...but in the case of specifically Nanoarmors, that's a really nice option compared to the usual having to wait 2d12 hours when it gets destroyed.

If you don't get attacked again. The rather big downside.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on July 21, 2017, 01:49:03 AM
How does Enduring Code and Pilot Repair interact with Super Nanoarmors?
Eeerr, they work normally? Enduring Code would mean that when your super nanoarmor reaches 0/negative HP you can either remain motionless while it quickly repair or take it off for acting and then putting back on when you're done for it to quickly repair itself. Pilot Repair, well, grants regeneration to the pilot, and if you're killed while outside, putting it on would patch you up. You may want to combine it with sentient in that case since it's kinda harder for other people to make you don your super nanoarmor than is placing them inside the super's cockpit.

Oh, so Enduring Code allows your Regen from Nanomachines to keep running when at or below 0 hp? That's kinda nice.
But I wouldn't be allowed to move until above 0 hp? Not even Spirits can be used? I could see how that'd be tricky to use then...but in the case of specifically Nanoarmors, that's a really nice option compared to the usual having to wait 2d12 hours when it gets destroyed.

If you don't get attacked again. The rather big downside.

That's the exact same downside to having Fast Healing so.....  :huh
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on July 21, 2017, 02:04:48 AM
How does Enduring Code and Pilot Repair interact with Super Nanoarmors?
Eeerr, they work normally? Enduring Code would mean that when your super nanoarmor reaches 0/negative HP you can either remain motionless while it quickly repair or take it off for acting and then putting back on when you're done for it to quickly repair itself. Pilot Repair, well, grants regeneration to the pilot, and if you're killed while outside, putting it on would patch you up. You may want to combine it with sentient in that case since it's kinda harder for other people to make you don your super nanoarmor than is placing them inside the super's cockpit.

Oh, so Enduring Code allows your Regen from Nanomachines to keep running when at or below 0 hp? That's kinda nice.
But I wouldn't be allowed to move until above 0 hp? Not even Spirits can be used? I could see how that'd be tricky to use then...but in the case of specifically Nanoarmors, that's a really nice option compared to the usual having to wait 2d12 hours when it gets destroyed.

If you don't get attacked again. The rather big downside.

That's the exact same downside to having Fast Healing so.....  :huh

Die Hard lets you act at not-dead negative HP. Various things extend it further. Even by vanilla rules you can take a single standard action before going into full bleed-out.

This is letting you not die... if nobody does anything and you can't do a thing.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on July 21, 2017, 02:14:45 AM
Plus hey, if it's the acessories that are imba, then why is the poor Real Pilot so less popular than the Super Pilot?
Maybe in your campaign, but in the one I'm doing, we've got two 'reals' (one moon vanguard with mostly real levels and one engineer), a super, and a ship captain, with not a session going by without someone commenting how absurdly powerful reals are (I've already posted the numbers on how reals at top level are more durable and more damaging than supers and been dismissed, so I won't do so again).
Might have something to do with your campaign not being gestalt and ours being one. Supers have a lot of potential when coupled with more class abilities.
Code: [Select]
Anomander: Super 9 / Real 1 / Other 4
RD: Super 14
Kuro: Super 3 / Arcane 10*
Harald: Super 2 / Captain 10
SorO: Arcane 14
Ninja: Divine 12
Kataro: Real 13*
------------------------------
Clanjos: Super 1
Ninja: Real 1
Nan: Real 1
Scout: Real 1
Kuro: Real 1
Elevevated: Real 1
RD: Captain 1
So in the level 1 game 14% were Super Pilots while 74% were Real Pilots. In the High level game with lots of multiclassing the level spread comes out to 14% other, 15% Real Pilot, 29% Super Pilot, and 37% Arcane/Divine Pilot. Between the two games, a player's usage of Real Pilot is almost double compared to Super Pilot.

So I guess for Osl statement to be true, he's counting the caster Classes which are Super Robots and no Real Robot alternative option offered.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on July 21, 2017, 02:19:30 AM
^Aye. Even Ketaro has super robot levels for his nanoarmor, iirc. The arcane pilot was probably the strongest pilot caster. Didn't really check the new psionic ones.

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Mysterious Power is still absurdly overpriced even if NM became useful, too.
Compared to what? Consider their worth in Battery upgrades.

Reactor offers bonus energy recovery to a base 100 EN super robot equal to 10R+XR.
R being the Reactor level (I, II or III) and X being the number of battery upgrade picks.

The worth of each reactor level in upgrade points can be determined by the amount of energy recovered over 3 rounds, which is usually the span of a short encounter. In each case, they regenerate at the very least the amount of bonus energy they would have acquired if you picked their upgrade points' worth in Battery upgrades (Reactor III regens 90 (9 battery upgrades) over 3 rounds at the minimum EN amount).
For a mecha who is likely to have high energy costs, the mysterious power upgrades are actually a discount over the battery upgrades.

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This is letting you not die... if nobody does anything and you can't do a thing.
It opens the door to many options to get back in the fight, though. Often, the key to survival is simply getting an extra round without getting blown up.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on July 21, 2017, 03:14:33 AM
To be fair, in most cases where Die Hard triggers, it's not your turn and you're gonna with you didn't have Die Hard -_-'
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Fzzr on July 21, 2017, 04:17:48 AM
Hopefully an oversight: As written, Pilot Repair works on meatbags but not Androids!
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on July 21, 2017, 05:01:46 AM
^Aye. Even Ketaro has super robot levels for his nanoarmor, iirc. The arcane pilot was probably the strongest pilot caster. Didn't really check the new psionic ones.
Nah, it's like a Healer vs Warblade debate. One of them anyone can build something far more effective 99% of the time but the other one in the hands of a highly skilled optimizer using an array of PrCs, Feats, & Items can produce a result that can cast Wish. We just happen to be played in a forum known as "minmaxboards", in a intended to be optimized game, using gestated rules.

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Mysterious Power is still absurdly overpriced even if NM became useful, too.
Compared to what? Consider their worth in Battery upgrades.
Yeah, they are not the only ones through.

Like at level 7, a Super that blew almost half his upgrade points on Energy gets a 100 base, +50 from the Battery Upgrade, and can take Mysterious Power three times for +45/rnd. A 7th level Real on the other hand can select the WeissWriter for a base of 130 energy which gets four Hardpoints, investing half of those into energy he picks Fission System for 20% energy regen and Long Cape to reduce all energy costs by 20% which effectively gives him a pool of 156 points and is like regenerating 15 per round.

Except the Real Robot also has 25 Arsenal Space instead of 4 and already has better weapons. And that model comes with Beam Coat for free and the energy focus makes Lightwave Barrier a prime choice, -24 energy a hit thanks to the Long Cape to reduce all none-missile damage by 50%. Combine with Quantum Generator for a 50% chance for attacks to miss unless they specifically spend a Hardpoint on Blindsight and on average you take -75% less damage each round before Spirit to offset the low DR penalty of that model too. And you still have a Hardpoint less to play with too since it gets 4.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on July 21, 2017, 09:20:11 AM
To be fair, in most cases where Die Hard triggers, it's not your turn and you're gonna with you didn't have Die Hard -_-'

Not the exact point. It's giving you a Die Hard upgrade that lets you do even less than Die Hard. I don't count the increased lower HP bound as particularly significant with the amount of damage weapons get in here.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on July 21, 2017, 08:46:16 PM
Quote
^Aye. Even Ketaro has super robot levels for his nanoarmor, iirc. The arcane pilot was probably the strongest pilot caster. Didn't really check the new psionic ones.
Nah, it's like a Healer vs Warblade debate. One of them anyone can build something far more effective 99% of the time but the other one in the hands of a highly skilled optimizer using an array of PrCs, Feats, & Items can produce a result that can cast Wish. We just happen to be played in a forum known as "minmaxboards", in a intended to be optimized game, using gestated rules.

Aye. I did mention that unlike their campaign, ours is gestalted. The campaign setting is intended to be used on gestalt, still.

Quote
Quote
Mysterious Power is still absurdly overpriced even if NM became useful, too.
Compared to what? Consider their worth in Battery upgrades.
Yeah, they are not the only ones through.

Like at level 7, a Super that blew almost half his upgrade points on Energy gets a 100 base, +50 from the Battery Upgrade, and can take Mysterious Power three times for +45/rnd. A 7th level Real on the other hand can select the WeissWriter for a base of 130 energy which gets four Hardpoints, investing half of those into energy he picks Fission System for 20% energy regen and Long Cape to reduce all energy costs by 20% which effectively gives him a pool of 156 points and is like regenerating 15 per round.

Except the Real Robot also has 25 Arsenal Space instead of 4 and already has better weapons. And that model comes with Beam Coat for free and the energy focus makes Lightwave Barrier a prime choice, -24 energy a hit thanks to the Long Cape to reduce all none-missile damage by 50%. Combine with Quantum Generator for a 50% chance for attacks to miss unless they specifically spend a Hardpoint on Blindsight and on average you take -75% less damage each round before Spirit to offset the low DR penalty of that model too. And you still have a Hardpoint less to play with too since it gets 4.

I was mostly comparing the worth of Mysterious Power vs another upgrade so as to demonstrate that its value in upgrade points is sensibly superior.
I wasn't trying to prove that it makes it superior to Real Robots, or that a Real Robot cannot do better at a given level.

Though that is beyond the point I wanted to make, in your example though you used an EN recovery 5 EN short of the real amount. 150 EN would recover 50 EN/round since the default recovery is 5 EN per round and Reactor increases the recovery rather than replace it. Just in case you've been recovering 5 EN less per round since the EN rules change (if we even had an encounter using them yet).

Quantum Generator and Beam Coat/Lightwave Barrier cannot coexist simultaneously but the Real could give up the Quantum Generator for a while if its benefits are jeopardized. The energy barriers do not have their energy costs mitigated by Long Cape, which only accounts for energy spent for maneuvers. Similarly, its 156 effective energy (+ savings on recovered energy per round) only works if all that energy is spent on maneuvers.

Sure, I'll concede that the Real has an edge over a Super that would invest massively into energy, but I'll never pretend that such an investment is actually a good idea. The point was only that as far as energy recovery goes, a Super is better served spending its upgrades on Mysterious Power than the equivalent amount on Batteries. It doesn't have to be maxed. A mecha's energy economy should be planned around the amount a player estimates will be needed throughout an encounter. The rest should be invested in making the robot more efficient at what it does.
Else you end with a robot with tons of energy but that cannot do much with it.

I believe that your point is that a Real Robot has an easier time managing just that. I don't recall opposing the notion (but given the recent exchanges here I imagine your points were also extensions of your previous arguments).
On that subject, I estimate that a Real robot indeed has an easier time at it. One of the reasons I feel a Super still has the upper hand in a gestalt campaign is that it can more easily be configured to fill specific gaps in a build or better existent advantages, which is often what is required for optimization.
But not in everything. Stealth, for one, isn't a Super forte.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on July 21, 2017, 09:11:26 PM
Default recovery for Energy is a static 5? I thought it was 10%?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on July 21, 2017, 09:13:23 PM
Quote
On that subject, I estimate that a Real robot indeed has an easier time at it. One of the reasons I feel a Super still has the upper hand in a gestalt campaign is that it can more easily be configured to fill specific gaps in a build or better existent advantages, which is often what is required for optimization.

Size consistency aside, it's not really offering much in the way of role-filling that you're not getting from real robots, and with reals you have the option to just completely switch out the robot and change the upgrades without requiring a friendly ship captain with the appropriate ship modification. The weapons are pretty fixed unless you start dabbling with real robots.

 
Default recovery for Energy is a static 5? I thought it was 10%?

Nope, it was changed to a static 5. You can move less than 30MU flying per round once you bottom out, and without reactor, good luck recovering for maneuvers or energy weapons. There's a reason that I've been bothered by the Mysterious Power vs Hardpoint cost; it's all too easy to have massively reduced energy before even fighting.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on July 21, 2017, 09:28:16 PM
Actually, I'd be of the opinion that since the hardpoint gain is out perhaps it is no longer needed to prevent arsenal increases if you take mysterious power/nanomachines. There is already plenty of upgrades that are interesting enough. Except perhaps with much less arsenal per upgrade pick and a change in the limit per pilot level to make it more linear. After all, whether level 4 or level 20 the amount of arsenal is somewhat just as valuable throughout the entire progression since the arsenal points remain limited by the arsenal options available to a given level.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on July 21, 2017, 09:35:17 PM
All this about the Arsenal has reminded me one thing, though.

Supers have an upgrade to make ranged weapons use STR. They have no native ranged ability that isn't tied into a maneuver. Bit odd.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on July 21, 2017, 09:52:37 PM
Technically, a pure super robot can still get a ranged in-built weapon using the Gamble spirit to steal once off a defeated mecha. More seriously, Osle did leave some options here and there for the sole purpose of giving options to certain builds. Even for stuff that hasn't been worked on yet.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Fzzr on July 22, 2017, 03:17:35 AM
Blasting is really handy for a Super that takes levels in Real. I built a Super 10/Real 1 in a Barrelion as a test. The result used that upgrade to make its Main Weapon x3 Big Head Railgun (with Area granted by Versatile) use STR.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on July 22, 2017, 04:34:47 AM
How does Enduring Code and Pilot Repair interact with Super Nanoarmors?
Eeerr, they work normally? Enduring Code would mean that when your super nanoarmor reaches 0/negative HP you can either remain motionless while it quickly repair or take it off for acting and then putting back on when you're done for it to quickly repair itself. Pilot Repair, well, grants regeneration to the pilot, and if you're killed while outside, putting it on would patch you up. You may want to combine it with sentient in that case since it's kinda harder for other people to make you don your super nanoarmor than is placing them inside the super's cockpit.

Oh, so Enduring Code allows your Regen from Nanomachines to keep running when at or below 0 hp? That's kinda nice.
But I wouldn't be allowed to move until above 0 hp? Not even Spirits can be used? I could see how that'd be tricky to use then...but in the case of specifically Nanoarmors, that's a really nice option compared to the usual having to wait 2d12 hours when it gets destroyed.

You can't use spirits while inside the negative HP robot, but somebody else can throw a repair your way.

Plus hey, if it's the acessories that are imba, then why is the poor Real Pilot so less popular than the Super Pilot?

Maybe in your campaign, but in the one I'm doing, we've got two 'reals' (one moon vanguard with mostly real levels and one engineer), a super, and a ship captain, with not a session going by without someone commenting how absurdly powerful reals are (I've already posted the numbers on how reals at top level are more durable and more damaging than supers and been dismissed, so I won't do so again).
Pointing out that your full party has exactly zero Real Pilot levels is only supporting my argument. Moon Vanguard isn't Real Pilot, part of another project of mine and you aren't even bothering to use full Real Robot rules for them, while you have an actual pure Super Pilot, a Ship captain, and some other class done by somebody else with completely different mechanics than the actual Real Pilot I wrote. The Real Pilot is so unpopular that you'll rather go fetch classes from other places than use a single level of them. It literally doesn't get more unpopular than that. Even the Real Robot rules are so unpopular that you can't bother to make a full character progression out of them while a full Super Robot is around.

Hopefully an oversight: As written, Pilot Repair works on meatbags but not Androids!
Intended since Androids have One With the Machine.

To be fair, in most cases where Die Hard triggers, it's not your turn and you're gonna with you didn't have Die Hard -_-'

Not the exact point. It's giving you a Die Hard upgrade that lets you do even less than Die Hard. I don't count the increased lower HP bound as particularly significant with the amount of damage weapons get in here.
How exactly is it worst than die hard?

Die Hard gives you virtually +9 HP to work with.

Let's say you're a super Robot with Nanomachinesx2, Enduring Code and 50 HP.  You're dropped to -9 HP, the limit you could act with Die Hard. Your mecha regens 10 HP at the start of your turn and you can fight just like Die Hard, except you're not super close to dead.

Now let's say something with 100 HP. If you're dropped to -19 HP, Die Hard does nothing for you and you're still dead. But if you're dropped to -19 HP with enduring code, you recover 20 HP to get at 1 positive and can keep on fighting.

Thanks to the regeneration from nanomachines, Enduring Code allows you to act right away after being dropped to negatives, as long as you weren't dropped too down.

You have to take every level of agility to be able to put this to any use. Stop and think about that for a second. You're intending this to be strong and slow... and to use it at all you have to take every single speed-boosting level you can, which gives you dodge bonuses to AC to boot. And then you're still slower than everyone else and, if anybody can stay away, completely unable to project any sort of threat because you're so slow and bereft of range options.
Plenty of ways for a super to get ranged attacks, and there are other ways of moving around other than your movement speed. For starters, your ever-present army of heal bots and battleships that you claim make nanomachines irrelevant could cart you around.

Serious question: why haven't you genericised both super and real robots so they have the same underlying chassis but a different allotment of arsenal stuff, and a selection of premade robots? It seems like it would be far easier to balance to just have mecha as one homogenous system than this bizarre split that just causes difficulty.
This is how I started this project. This is how I will end this project. It's part of the vision that originally inspired me to start writing this. It's part of what makes me keep updating it.

All this about the Arsenal has reminded me one thing, though.

Supers have an upgrade to make ranged weapons use STR. They have no native ranged ability that isn't tied into a maneuver. Bit odd.

Multiclass support. And/or tank transform.

Actually, I'd be of the opinion that since the hardpoint gain is out perhaps it is no longer needed to prevent arsenal increases if you take mysterious power/nanomachines. There is already plenty of upgrades that are interesting enough. Except perhaps with much less arsenal per upgrade pick and a change in the limit per pilot level to make it more linear. After all, whether level 4 or level 20 the amount of arsenal is somewhat just as valuable throughout the entire progression since the arsenal points remain limited by the arsenal options available to a given level.
An interesting idea, but to be discussed later.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on July 22, 2017, 09:25:14 AM
Plus hey, if it's the acessories that are imba, then why is the poor Real Pilot so less popular than the Super Pilot?

Maybe in your campaign, but in the one I'm doing, we've got two 'reals' (one moon vanguard with mostly real levels and one engineer), a super, and a ship captain, with not a session going by without someone commenting how absurdly powerful reals are (I've already posted the numbers on how reals at top level are more durable and more damaging than supers and been dismissed, so I won't do so again).
Pointing out that your full party has exactly zero Real Pilot levels is only supporting my argument. Moon Vanguard isn't Real Pilot, part of another project of mine and you aren't even bothering to use full Real Robot rules for them, while you have an actual pure Super Pilot, a Ship captain, and some other class done by somebody else with completely different mechanics than the actual Real Pilot I wrote. The Real Pilot is so unpopular that you'll rather go fetch classes from other places than use a single level of them. It literally doesn't get more unpopular than that. Even the Real Robot rules are so unpopular that you can't bother to make a full character progression out of them while a full Super Robot is around.

Oh, quit that bullshit. "It's unpopular so it must be weaker" is absolutely ridiculous, or are we suddenly claiming that druids are the most popular thing ever in a vacuum? One: arcane casting has been tied to Super Robots, as has already been said. Two: I'm just going to throw this out, but maybe people just like super robots enough to pick them without undergoing an exhaustive examination of which class is superior? Three: you've changed supers so much in the past six months that pick rates are a completely useless way of evaluating balance--you certainly can't use anything from PS there, since we made these characters four years ago. >_>


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To be fair, in most cases where Die Hard triggers, it's not your turn and you're gonna with you didn't have Die Hard -_-'

Not the exact point. It's giving you a Die Hard upgrade that lets you do even less than Die Hard. I don't count the increased lower HP bound as particularly significant with the amount of damage weapons get in here.
How exactly is it worst than die hard?

Die Hard gives you virtually +9 HP to work with.

Let's say you're a super Robot with Nanomachinesx2, Enduring Code and 50 HP.  You're dropped to -9 HP, the limit you could act with Die Hard. Your mecha regens 10 HP at the start of your turn and you can fight just like Die Hard, except you're not super close to dead.

Now let's say something with 100 HP. If you're dropped to -19 HP, Die Hard does nothing for you and you're still dead. But if you're dropped to -19 HP with enduring code, you recover 20 HP to get at 1 positive and can keep on fighting.

Thanks to the regeneration from nanomachines, Enduring Code allows you to act right away after being dropped to negatives, as long as you weren't dropped too down.

When you seem to regularly have normal attacks that have levels of damage normally associated with high level spellcasters sitting in the arsenal, quibbling over the exact level of HP it's good for is a bit moot. It's giving you a grace window where you can heal out of it, then an extra 70% of HP where you don't even have the game's original "take one standard action" idea.

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You have to take every level of agility to be able to put this to any use. Stop and think about that for a second. You're intending this to be strong and slow... and to use it at all you have to take every single speed-boosting level you can, which gives you dodge bonuses to AC to boot. And then you're still slower than everyone else and, if anybody can stay away, completely unable to project any sort of threat because you're so slow and bereft of range options.
Plenty of ways for a super to get ranged attacks, and there are other ways of moving around other than your movement speed. For starters, your ever-present army of heal bots and battleships that you claim make nanomachines irrelevant could cart you around.

Ah yes, one battleship and the existence of healing items are now an army. Either way, that's not going to help with moving < 30MU up until the point where everyone has a standard speed of 60MU or above. It's not about out of battle movement, it's about combining an essentially melee class with a movement speed that makes it far too easy to be ignored in an encounter entirely. And having to take agility at every opportunity right after taking its thematic opposite.

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Serious question: why haven't you genericised both super and real robots so they have the same underlying chassis but a different allotment of arsenal stuff, and a selection of premade robots? It seems like it would be far easier to balance to just have mecha as one homogenous system than this bizarre split that just causes difficulty.
This is how I started this project. This is how I will end this project. It's part of the vision that originally inspired me to start writing this. It's part of what makes me keep updating it.

???

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All this about the Arsenal has reminded me one thing, though.

Supers have an upgrade to make ranged weapons use STR. They have no native ranged ability that isn't tied into a maneuver. Bit odd.

Multiclass support. And/or tank transform.

Things unique to supers: nanomachines. Things unique to reals: ranged weapons, usable stealth, multiple types of defences, and (shared with ship captains) healing/refuelling other people. Wonderful.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: YuweaCurtis on July 22, 2017, 10:15:30 AM
I'm playing a Real Pilot on gitp for what its worth.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on July 22, 2017, 10:53:53 AM
Even the Real Robot rules are so unpopular that you can't bother to make a full character progression out of them while a full Super Robot is around.

...I'm sorry, what? Real robot rules are Just Better than super robot rules. I've shown the values before. Let me go find them.
The Alteisen Riese seems to be overpowered in comparison to other options. It has more HP than is possible on a super robot (the designated tanks) at 400 as compared to the max HP on a super robot being 315 (without Great Plating, which brings it up to 390). It has more natural armor than a super can have at 22 as compared to the 12 a super can have (without Great Plating, which brings it up to 18). It has more DR than a super can have at 40 as compared to 35 (without Great Plating, which does bring it up to 48, if it’s colossal). It has the same EN as a super without batteries, but supers tend to be more energy intensive than reals anyway. It has a +7 bonus to saves, while a super can only have at most +6. It has 125Mu movement speed, while a super's top speed is 85Mu (without Great Agility, which does bring it up to 140, if it's colossal). It has five hardpoints, more than any other unit in the conversion save the Ashsaber. Its weapons, likewise, are incredibly powerful. its Revolving Bunker would take 9 super robot upgrades to recreate (roughly), and that's not including its to hit bonus. While this is partially balanced out by its low ammo count, it's still incredibly strong. The Claymore Avalanche is also a very powerful weapon. It's stronger than anything a super robot can have save a fully Mighty'd twinned heavy weapon, and even that will consume much more resources than the Claymores.

Here we are. You said at the time that the reason for this was because you're a fan of Excellen and Kyosuke (pointing to your profile pic). That doesn't change the fact that Real is in fact stronger than super, with the only saving grace for super not even being super, namely that Arcane Pilot is built as a super derived class.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Fzzr on July 23, 2017, 03:28:55 AM
I don't use a Real because Real seems boring to me, not because Super is better. Of course, my favorite mecha shows are TTGL, Gunbuster, Diebuster, Godannar, and Nanoha so it's a matter of taste, really.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on July 23, 2017, 03:51:45 PM
Question: If a support staff medic or scientist starts a lengthy process (Pilot Patch, Direct Link, Operation, Prototype Weaponry and similar), what happens if the process is interrupted? Such as the support staff or the thing being worked on having to go elsewhere or maybe missing concentration checks to stay focused on the task because of, say, a bloody battle going on over the roof of the building that keeps sending debris and tremors all around the workshop.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on July 25, 2017, 01:54:51 AM
The Real Pilot is so unpopular that you'll rather go fetch classes from other places than use a single level of them.
Duh.

I'm the kind of guy that likes an arcane gish so it's not surprising what I'm going to trend towards. But your submissions offer very little in support of that. So for example Baha not being a Arcane Pilot 1 / Real Pilot 13 with a "Real Arcanist" Feat is your fault for not providing it as a viable option worth considering. And complaining that's not "Real Pilot" enough because it has spells kind of misses the point. And like, your love gestated games and already included support for gestated characters in your already existing multiclass Feats too.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on July 25, 2017, 12:23:36 PM
Plus hey, if it's the acessories that are imba, then why is the poor Real Pilot so less popular than the Super Pilot?

Maybe in your campaign, but in the one I'm doing, we've got two 'reals' (one moon vanguard with mostly real levels and one engineer), a super, and a ship captain, with not a session going by without someone commenting how absurdly powerful reals are (I've already posted the numbers on how reals at top level are more durable and more damaging than supers and been dismissed, so I won't do so again).
Pointing out that your full party has exactly zero Real Pilot levels is only supporting my argument. Moon Vanguard isn't Real Pilot, part of another project of mine and you aren't even bothering to use full Real Robot rules for them, while you have an actual pure Super Pilot, a Ship captain, and some other class done by somebody else with completely different mechanics than the actual Real Pilot I wrote. The Real Pilot is so unpopular that you'll rather go fetch classes from other places than use a single level of them. It literally doesn't get more unpopular than that. Even the Real Robot rules are so unpopular that you can't bother to make a full character progression out of them while a full Super Robot is around.

Oh, quit that bullshit. "It's unpopular so it must be weaker" is absolutely ridiculous, or are we suddenly claiming that druids are the most popular thing ever in a vacuum? One: arcane casting has been tied to Super Robots, as has already been said. Two: I'm just going to throw this out, but maybe people just like super robots enough to pick them without undergoing an exhaustive examination of which class is superior? Three: you've changed supers so much in the past six months that pick rates are a completely useless way of evaluating balance--you certainly can't use anything from PS there, since we made these characters four years ago. >_>
There's something contradictory in there. Druids are divine casters, yet the Divine Pilot seems to be even more unpopular than the Real Pilot, as in people here don't even seem to pretend they exist. Considering all the self buffs in the cleric list, it honestly surprises me.

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To be fair, in most cases where Die Hard triggers, it's not your turn and you're gonna with you didn't have Die Hard -_-'

Not the exact point. It's giving you a Die Hard upgrade that lets you do even less than Die Hard. I don't count the increased lower HP bound as particularly significant with the amount of damage weapons get in here.
How exactly is it worst than die hard?

Die Hard gives you virtually +9 HP to work with.

Let's say you're a super Robot with Nanomachinesx2, Enduring Code and 50 HP.  You're dropped to -9 HP, the limit you could act with Die Hard. Your mecha regens 10 HP at the start of your turn and you can fight just like Die Hard, except you're not super close to dead.

Now let's say something with 100 HP. If you're dropped to -19 HP, Die Hard does nothing for you and you're still dead. But if you're dropped to -19 HP with enduring code, you recover 20 HP to get at 1 positive and can keep on fighting.

Thanks to the regeneration from nanomachines, Enduring Code allows you to act right away after being dropped to negatives, as long as you weren't dropped too down.

When you seem to regularly have normal attacks that have levels of damage normally associated with high level spellcasters sitting in the arsenal, quibbling over the exact level of HP it's good for is a bit moot. It's giving you a grace window where you can heal out of it, then an extra 70% of HP where you don't even have the game's original "take one standard action" idea.
But you do have "take full turn worth of actions" for that extra 30% of HP which chances are will be significantly more than diehard's measly extra 9 HP, and the extra 70% of HP is still better than being reduced to a pile of scrap. You claimed diehard is plain better, I proved otherwise, so in your own words, "quit that bullshit".


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You have to take every level of agility to be able to put this to any use. Stop and think about that for a second. You're intending this to be strong and slow... and to use it at all you have to take every single speed-boosting level you can, which gives you dodge bonuses to AC to boot. And then you're still slower than everyone else and, if anybody can stay away, completely unable to project any sort of threat because you're so slow and bereft of range options.
Plenty of ways for a super to get ranged attacks, and there are other ways of moving around other than your movement speed. For starters, your ever-present army of heal bots and battleships that you claim make nanomachines irrelevant could cart you around.

Ah yes, one battleship and the existence of healing items are now an army. Either way, that's not going to help with moving < 30MU up until the point where everyone has a standard speed of 60MU or above. It's not about out of battle movement, it's about combining an essentially melee class with a movement speed that makes it far too easy to be ignored in an encounter entirely. And having to take agility at every opportunity right after taking its thematic opposite.
(http://imgur.com/nPQdaZU.jpg)

Considering your mecha show preferences, I would expect you to be well versed on the ancestral art of riding on top of a battleship instead of inside.

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Serious question: why haven't you genericised both super and real robots so they have the same underlying chassis but a different allotment of arsenal stuff, and a selection of premade robots? It seems like it would be far easier to balance to just have mecha as one homogenous system than this bizarre split that just causes difficulty.
This is how I started this project. This is how I will end this project. It's part of the vision that originally inspired me to start writing this. It's part of what makes me keep updating it.

???
Because I like it that way.

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All this about the Arsenal has reminded me one thing, though.

Supers have an upgrade to make ranged weapons use STR. They have no native ranged ability that isn't tied into a maneuver. Bit odd.

Multiclass support. And/or tank transform.

Things unique to supers: nanomachines. Things unique to reals: ranged weapons, usable stealth, multiple types of defences, and (shared with ship captains) healing/refuelling other people. Wonderful.

Super Robots have Undetectable and also the smallest mechas for stealth, can take Absolute Barrier and Alien Alloy for multiple types of defenses, plus the Zero State multiplication and Zero Entropy for elemental damage.

Even the Real Robot rules are so unpopular that you can't bother to make a full character progression out of them while a full Super Robot is around.

...I'm sorry, what? Real robot rules are Just Better than super robot rules. I've shown the values before. Let me go find them.
The Alteisen Riese seems to be overpowered in comparison to other options. It has more HP than is possible on a super robot (the designated tanks) at 400 as compared to the max HP on a super robot being 315 (without Great Plating, which brings it up to 390). It has more natural armor than a super can have at 22 as compared to the 12 a super can have (without Great Plating, which brings it up to 18). It has more DR than a super can have at 40 as compared to 35 (without Great Plating, which does bring it up to 48, if it’s colossal). It has the same EN as a super without batteries, but supers tend to be more energy intensive than reals anyway. It has a +7 bonus to saves, while a super can only have at most +6. It has 125Mu movement speed, while a super's top speed is 85Mu (without Great Agility, which does bring it up to 140, if it's colossal). It has five hardpoints, more than any other unit in the conversion save the Ashsaber. Its weapons, likewise, are incredibly powerful. its Revolving Bunker would take 9 super robot upgrades to recreate (roughly), and that's not including its to hit bonus. While this is partially balanced out by its low ammo count, it's still incredibly strong. The Claymore Avalanche is also a very powerful weapon. It's stronger than anything a super robot can have save a fully Mighty'd twinned heavy weapon, and even that will consume much more resources than the Claymores.

Here we are. You said at the time that the reason for this was because you're a fan of Excellen and Kyosuke (pointing to your profile pic). That doesn't change the fact that Real is in fact stronger than super, with the only saving grace for super not even being super, namely that Arcane Pilot is built as a super derived class.
That wasn't the only or main reason. Reals get slightly superior raw numbers in return for less customization.
If the Alteisen Riese was squishier/punier than a pimped super... There would be no reason to pick the real robot. But again what you see with the Alteisen Riese is what you get, while a high level super can be tweaked all around to your whims.

And case in point:
I don't use a Real because Real seems boring to me, not because Super is better. Of course, my favorite mecha shows are TTGL, Gunbuster, Diebuster, Godannar, and Nanoha so it's a matter of taste, really.
So ok you like exciting customization you take the super pilot. The real robot is the "boring but pratical" option, and isn't rendered completely obsolete just because you pimped up your super.

Question: If a support staff medic or scientist starts a lengthy process (Pilot Patch, Direct Link, Operation, Prototype Weaponry and similar), what happens if the process is interrupted? Such as the support staff or the thing being worked on having to go elsewhere or maybe missing concentration checks to stay focused on the task because of, say, a bloody battle going on over the roof of the building that keeps sending debris and tremors all around the workshop.

You need to re-start from scratch.

Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on July 25, 2017, 02:27:47 PM
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There's something contradictory in there. Druids are divine casters, yet the Divine Pilot seems to be even more unpopular than the Real Pilot, as in people here don't even seem to pretend they exist. Considering all the self buffs in the cleric list, it honestly surprises me.

Who knows? Maybe it's because self-buffing is honestly a pretty boring thing to do? Maybe people just prefer arcane casters? Pick rate is not a good way to extrapolate balance. Seriously, outside of competitive-tier gameplay, that would cause MP games no end of hell.

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But you do have "take full turn worth of actions" for that extra 30% of HP which chances are will be significantly more than diehard's measly extra 9 HP, and the extra 70% of HP is still better than being reduced to a pile of scrap. You claimed diehard is plain better, I proved otherwise, so in your own words, "quit that bullshit".

No, I claimed that the benefit Diehard gives is superior to the benefit of this option. Diehard's flaw is that you have a fixed death HP that's perfectly reasonable at level one or level two, not so much when you have over 100HP and 10 damage is a rounding error. With the extreme damage going around in the PS game, -30% HP is the same sort of rounding error.

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Considering your mecha show preferences, I would expect you to be well versed on the ancestral art of riding on top of a battleship instead of inside.

Gunbuster itself can split into two spaceships moving at relativistic speeds and it's by no means slow as a mecha. Only reason it was on the Excelion was because that thing was rigged to be a bomb that needed to avoid being blown up. :p

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Super Robots have Undetectable and also the smallest mechas for stealth, can take Absolute Barrier and Alien Alloy for multiple types of defenses, plus the Zero State multiplication and Zero Entropy for elemental damage.

Undetectable has been noted as inferior to arsenal options, and stealth doesn't mean anything when you've got auto-detect radars all over the place. So half right: it has them, but they're not viable at the moment. Absolute Barrier has a direct equivalent in Arsenal options that are more energy-efficient to boot. So... elemental damage and healing. We're up to two.

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That wasn't the only or main reason. Reals get slightly superior raw numbers in return for less customization.
If the Alteisen Riese was squishier/punier than a pimped super... There would be no reason to pick the real robot. But again what you see with the Alteisen Riese is what you get, while a high level super can be tweaked all around to your whims.
First: the super can have +4 Nat AC. It'll be clear why it doesn't matter (it comes from Growth, for a start) by the end, though, so they can have equal Nat AC... assuming the super grows to max size and takes great plating in an attempt to be the tankiest mecha.

"Slightly". Those are better numbers than a level 20 super before you put the hardpoints to use for customising (+14 AC, +7 DR, immunity to the Power property, more HP, +6 Fort, +7 Ref, and the ability to increase that to +21 AC as a move action... for 2/5 Hardpoints) and you get it a level earlier. To compare that, take the same Great Plated super: 430 to 380 HP,  29 Nat AC to 26 Nat AC. The difference in DR is reduced to 1. Oh, and even taking max agility has a halved dodge bonus, so the mecha's comparable base AC at that point is 41AC against a whopping 46 AC (without the Alteisen going full bore on defence and taking another +7 AC item). But that's not all, because the super is still vulnerable to power weapons--and they're easy to get--the practical AC in that situation is a 46 AC real vs 28 AC super. It doesn't matter if the super puts their one hardpoint into a defensive accessory as it's still worse than what an equivalent Real gets. But wait, there's more! Let's add in size bonuses (since Great Plating needs size to get more HP/AC). To get all that, the Super Robot has to be Colossal, the Alteisen Reise is large. So we're actually looking at final AC's, removing pilot scores as they'll be equivalent, of:
Focused Super Robot - 20 AC; 33 AC against non-Power (+4 Natural Armour from Growth)
Alteisen Riese - 45 AC. (Naturally all this after the nat armour bonuses includes the base 10AC). It can happily increase this bonus to 52AC if it wants to play defensively.

Relevantly, if this Super had the max level of targeting as well, it has the following bonus to its attacks:
+3.
The Riese:
+6. Except even its weakest inbuilt weapon has a +9 bonus, and its strongest has +13, and only its gatling gun isn't a Power and Rending weapon.

This isn't a small difference! You can't focus a super on something and become equivalent to a Real focused on the same thing! They're faster, they have better special weapons, the tough ones are tougher--you can be bigger or smaller but the benefits you get from that are worse!

This isn't a small bonus, it's getting better than something that has to make sacrifices in the thing it's sacrificed for. It's tankier than a super that sacrificed its offence and even its ability to dodge, but hits at least as well as one that didn't take defences and can spend one of its hardpoints to get a +7 attack bonus that gives it a better to-hit than anything except a super making itself smaller and doing less damage! Or it could take one that only gives it a +5 extra (so up to +11, the max targetting bonus), get more range on its weapons, cheaper maneuvers, an extra +7 AC, an extra +70 MU (so nearly an entire Super Robot's speed). Oh, it also has 2 hardpoints left, so it could happily spend those on, say, Reactor IV (can Supers even get that? the wording suggests they can't go past Reactor III) along with either extreme stealth and a perfect radar system, or take Steel Soul, accept the useless AC bonus, but now be waving around a +13 to all saves and the ability to use spirits for 40% less. So they get to be the best at spirits, too.

Meanwhile, anything that can hit the Riese's final AC auto-hits a tanky super robot, who may as well have not bothered.

This is the extreme end, but it's a general development throughout that if you honestly want to customise for ability or to really build for something, you're better off taking 1 or 4 levels of real pilot first (to get access to superior baseline mecha, hardpoints and weapons) and then go over to Super to enhance it there. The only reason to play Super Robots is, shockingly, for liking them.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on July 25, 2017, 04:42:13 PM
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There's something contradictory in there. Druids are divine casters, yet the Divine Pilot seems to be even more unpopular than the Real Pilot, as in people here don't even seem to pretend they exist. Considering all the self buffs in the cleric list, it honestly surprises me.

Who knows? Maybe it's because self-buffing is honestly a pretty boring thing to do? Maybe people just prefer arcane casters? Pick rate is not a good way to extrapolate balance. Seriously, outside of competitive-tier gameplay, that would cause MP games no end of hell.
Self-buffing's boring? Haven't you been paying attention to soro's character, or all the fapping to Codzilla and gishes since forever?

But bigger point being several people like power, and if barely anybody's picking the supposed power option, then it simply can't be that powerful.

Meanwhile severly underpowered options are rarely if ever picked, point.

Exhibit A: the samurai and ninja classes in 3.5. Ninjas and samurais are extremely popular concepts, but since the classes are extremely weaksauce, when was the last time you saw anybody play either?

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But you do have "take full turn worth of actions" for that extra 30% of HP which chances are will be significantly more than diehard's measly extra 9 HP, and the extra 70% of HP is still better than being reduced to a pile of scrap. You claimed diehard is plain better, I proved otherwise, so in your own words, "quit that bullshit".

No, I claimed that the benefit Diehard gives is superior to the benefit of this option. Diehard's flaw is that you have a fixed death HP that's perfectly reasonable at level one or level two, not so much when you have over 100HP and 10 damage is a rounding error. With the extreme damage going around in the PS game, -30% HP is the same sort of rounding error.

2nd level super robot: 35 HP (25 base +plating x1)
Plating x 1, Nanomachines x2 (5 points), eternal code (1 point), 1 point leftover in whatever. Recovers 7 HP per turn.

If you're dropped to -6 HP, you get to return to 1 and be ready to fight again right away. Diehard may have a slightly bigger margin of a whooping 3 HP (aka toughness feat, crap tier), but on the other hand eternal code allows you to get an actual full turn worth of actions, and again, it's not leaving you at death's door. At level 3+ eternal code starts pulling ahead on all fields. And even if you drop to, say, -7 to -13 HP, you only sit out one round of combat. And with your army of repairbots following you, they can too patch you up from negatives instead of starting at a wreckage.

Seriously diehard is a big trap. Because if you're still fighting then enemies will keep hitting you and you only stop when you're dead.

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Considering your mecha show preferences, I would expect you to be well versed on the ancestral art of riding on top of a battleship instead of inside.

Gunbuster itself can split into two spaceships moving at relativistic speeds and it's by no means slow as a mecha. Only reason it was on the Excelion was because that thing was rigged to be a bomb that needed to avoid being blown up. :p

Gunbuster's movement speed is irrelevant. The point is that a mecha riding on top of a spaceship is a viable and flavourful option. :tongue

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Super Robots have Undetectable and also the smallest mechas for stealth, can take Absolute Barrier and Alien Alloy for multiple types of defenses, plus the Zero State multiplication and Zero Entropy for elemental damage.

Undetectable has been noted as inferior to arsenal options, and stealth doesn't mean anything when you've got auto-detect radars all over the place. So half right: it has them, but they're not viable at the moment. Absolute Barrier has a direct equivalent in Arsenal options that are more energy-efficient to boot. So... elemental damage and healing. We're up to two.
Ah, the classic "reals get infinite hardpoints so have everything simultaneously". Alas, they don't. Even your Alteisen Riese example lacks either a radar or stealth system.

As for barriers:

Lightwave Barrier (II) 30 energy, ignored by both beams and missiles.
False Axis Repulsive Field Generator System (III) 45 energy! Over twice the energy maintenance of Absolute Barrier.
Phase Shift Barrier(IV) 5 energy, but ignored by both beams and power weapons (aka everybody has at least one of those).
GN-Field(V) 15 energy, but only against Weapons with ammo, weapons with the Power property and spells/Su abilities/maneuvers. Meanwhile supers have Absolute Barrierx3 blocking 60% damage.
G-Territorry(VI) 15 energy, but we're at level 16 and a super can have an Absolute Barrierx4 blocking 80% damage.
SYSTEM ∀-99 I-Field(VII) 25 energy, more than Absolute Barrier and still only half damage.

So as you can see, more than half the real's barriers are actually less efficient in terms of raw energy/damage, and the ones that are more efficient have significant drawbacks by being ignored by a wide array of weapons. There's some extras here and there, but the Absolute Barrier also gets some of their own.

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That wasn't the only or main reason. Reals get slightly superior raw numbers in return for less customization.
If the Alteisen Riese was squishier/punier than a pimped super... There would be no reason to pick the real robot. But again what you see with the Alteisen Riese is what you get, while a high level super can be tweaked all around to your whims.
First: the super can have +4 Nat AC. It'll be clear why it doesn't matter (it comes from Growth, for a start) by the end, though, so they can have equal Nat AC... assuming the super grows to max size and takes great plating in an attempt to be the tankiest mecha.

"Slightly". Those are better numbers than a level 20 super before you put the hardpoints to use for customising (+14 AC, +7 DR, immunity to the Power property, more HP, +6 Fort, +7 Ref, and the ability to increase that to +21 AC as a move action... for 2/5 Hardpoints) and you get it a level earlier. To compare that, take the same Great Plated super: 430 to 380 HP,  29 Nat AC to 26 Nat AC. The difference in DR is reduced to 1. Oh, and even taking max agility has a halved dodge bonus, so the mecha's comparable base AC at that point is 41AC against a whopping 46 AC (without the Alteisen going full bore on defence and taking another +7 AC item). But that's not all, because the super is still vulnerable to power weapons--and they're easy to get--the practical AC in that situation is a 46 AC real vs 28 AC super. It doesn't matter if the super puts their one hardpoint into a defensive accessory as it's still worse than what an equivalent Real gets. But wait, there's more! Let's add in size bonuses (since Great Plating needs size to get more HP/AC). To get all that, the Super Robot has to be Colossal, the Alteisen Reise is large. So we're actually looking at final AC's, removing pilot scores as they'll be equivalent, of:
Focused Super Robot - 20 AC; 33 AC against non-Power (+4 Natural Armour from Growth)
Alteisen Riese - 45 AC. (Naturally all this after the nat armour bonuses includes the base 10AC). It can happily increase this bonus to 52AC if it wants to play defensively.

Relevantly, if this Super had the max level of targeting as well, it has the following bonus to its attacks:
+3.
The Riese:
+6. Except even its weakest inbuilt weapon has a +9 bonus, and its strongest has +13, and only its gatling gun isn't a Power and Rending weapon.

This isn't a small difference! You can't focus a super on something and become equivalent to a Real focused on the same thing! They're faster, they have better special weapons, the tough ones are tougher--you can be bigger or smaller but the benefits you get from that are worse!

This isn't a small bonus, it's getting better than something that has to make sacrifices in the thing it's sacrificed for. It's tankier than a super that sacrificed its offence and even its ability to dodge, but hits at least as well as one that didn't take defences and can spend one of its hardpoints to get a +7 attack bonus that gives it a better to-hit than anything except a super making itself smaller and doing less damage! Or it could take one that only gives it a +5 extra (so up to +11, the max targetting bonus), get more range on its weapons, cheaper maneuvers, an extra +7 AC, an extra +70 MU (so nearly an entire Super Robot's speed). Oh, it also has 2 hardpoints left, so it could happily spend those on, say, Reactor IV (can Supers even get that? the wording suggests they can't go past Reactor III) along with either extreme stealth and a perfect radar system, or take Steel Soul, accept the useless AC bonus, but now be waving around a +13 to all saves and the ability to use spirits for 40% less. So they get to be the best at spirits, too.

Meanwhile, anything that can hit the Riese's final AC auto-hits a tanky super robot, who may as well have not bothered.

This is the extreme end, but it's a general development throughout that if you honestly want to customise for ability or to really build for something, you're better off taking 1 or 4 levels of real pilot first (to get access to superior baseline mecha, hardpoints and weapons) and then go over to Super to enhance it there. The only reason to play Super Robots is, shockingly, for liking them.
Alteisen Riese only has 3 hardpoints, so although you can indeed buff their raw numbers considerably, it also means the poor thing will be unable to find the enemy and unable to set any proper ambush as well. A stealth focused super could run circles around it, or if you want to slug it out throw maximized Absolute Barrier on top that also happens to ignore every single real barrier in melee.

And as a matter of fact Absolute Barrier can make you immune to the Power property too. As early as 4th level.

Multiclassing is a viable alternative, yes. Some people hate it with all their guts and design classes that have negative reasons to ever multiclass, but I worked hard to make sure of real/super being an attractive idea.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on July 25, 2017, 05:42:43 PM
Okay, so I thought it was the one with 5. Minor change: that third attack-bonus? Swap it for the radar/stealth combo option. You still have better to-hit than a super built to be a tank (which is an inferior tank), better stealth than any super, and you can autodetect the stealth super. This isn't costing build resources! If I have some information I can immediately customise for the appropriate foe, because my base stats are equal or better than someone devoting everything to this build. That's good customisation! Being able to take a baseline and add relevant bonuses or weapons! Not "every level you get 4 points to devote to one fixed configuration that can only be changed with a friendly ship captain that took the appropriate feat". I have more customisation options with hardpoints and the potential to choose a different base mecha than I do building once and sitting around forever.

Double bonus: if my mecha is destroyed, I can just get another one with no downsides.

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And as a matter of fact Absolute Barrier can make you immune to the Power property too. As early as 4th level.

So from what I'm seeing, supers are perfectly customisable, but if you want to use them decently and not ignore the one thing that apparently makes them a shabby knockoff in stat terms, you're left with no choice but pumping everything into energy and taking a particular barrier option? Such customisation. Mind, they don't have many options anyway in statistical terms--see above about the real having better numbers in every regard even early on with movement speed. Or to hit. Honestly, with the progression, you're not really customising, just alternating between picking something unusual and then spending all your points on maxing some scaling options--which you have to, because ignoring both the AC ones (one seems bad enough) leaves you slow and fragile; ignoring the to-hit ones entirely seems insane because every Real has +'s there and you'll need it to hit AC... yeah, that's most of them gone.

Though now barriers are looking like the equivalent of feat taxes: it's stupid not to take them because oh look half your AC gone.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on July 25, 2017, 06:04:16 PM
Okay, so I thought it was the one with 5. Minor change: that third attack-bonus? Swap it for the radar/stealth combo option. You still have better to-hit than a super built to be a tank (which is an inferior tank), better stealth than any super, and you can autodetect the stealth super. This isn't costing build resources! If I have some information I can immediately customise for the appropriate foe, because my base stats are equal or better than someone devoting everything to this build. That's good customisation! Being able to take a baseline and add relevant bonuses or weapons! Not "every level you get 4 points to devote to one fixed configuration that can only be changed with a friendly ship captain that took the appropriate feat". I have more customisation options with hardpoints and the potential to choose a different base mecha than I do building once and sitting around forever.
Sistema Voyeur is a quite fine choice, but you should do the math more carefully.
The Alteisen Riese would get Darkvision 480 mu, Blindsense 480 mu, plus you know the location the position of everybody piloting a mecha or wearing metal equipment within 240 mu, Spacesense 480 mu, Blindsight 120 mu plus you can see through fogs as well as obstacles not made of metal as long as they're less than 5 feet thick and within 480 mu.

On the other hand Undetectable x11 gives 330 mu reduction on all of those. So the mecha/metal detection and blindsight are both completely shut down and everything else is reduced to 150 mu. A super with burning justice can easily blast away from outside this range. And take in mind, Darkvision isn't auto-detect unless you make Spot checks too, Blindsense still leaves Total Concealment, and Spacesense won't work against something standing on the ground.

Meanwhile Electronic Nose works by true doublings resulting in:
30 (1) 60 (2) 120 (3) 240(4) 480(5) 960(6) 1920(7) 3840(8) 7680 (9) 15360(10) 30640 (11) mu.

Sistema Voyeur  reduces that by 1/48, which is a 638 mu, rounded down, still more than any of the non-reduced senses of the real! A pure super would thus detect the pure real first with, and if the super's stealthy too, the Alteisen Riese's can only hope to be really lucky to get in blindsense range which still leaves it with 50% miss chance.


Double bonus: if my mecha is destroyed, I can just get another one with no downsides.
Eeerrr, real pilots get assigned with a lower tier mecha if their main one gets blown up.

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And as a matter of fact Absolute Barrier can make you immune to the Power property too. As early as 4th level.

So from what I'm seeing, supers are perfectly customisable, but if you want to use them decently and not ignore the one thing that apparently makes them a shabby knockoff in stat terms, you're left with no choice but pumping everything into energy and taking a particular barrier option? Such customisation. Mind, they don't have many options anyway in statistical terms--see above about the real having better numbers in every regard even early on with movement speed. Or to hit. Honestly, with the progression, you're not really customising, just alternating between picking something unusual and then spending all your points on maxing some scaling options--which you have to, because ignoring both the AC ones (one seems bad enough) leaves you slow and fragile; ignoring the to-hit ones entirely seems insane because every Real has +'s there and you'll need it to hit AC... yeah, that's most of them gone.

Though now barriers are looking like the equivalent of feat taxes: it's stupid not to take them because oh look half your AC gone.
As shown above, a stealthy super will be pretty troublesome to target at all. And if you instead focus on getting enough DR and damage reduction, being hit isn't that bad on the first place as you'll be able to shrugg off the damage.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on July 25, 2017, 06:51:33 PM
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Question: If a support staff medic or scientist starts a lengthy process (Pilot Patch, Direct Link, Operation, Prototype Weaponry and similar), what happens if the process is interrupted? Such as the support staff or the thing being worked on having to go elsewhere or maybe missing concentration checks to stay focused on the task because of, say, a bloody battle going on over the roof of the building that keeps sending debris and tremors all around the workshop.
You need to re-start from scratch.

Sounds perfect as long as the time it takes to do the task remains the same for the do-over. Keeping track of what was rolled for a given task.
A similar question in the same vein. If multiple support staff work on doing the same thing:
They roll to know who does it the fastest. Then technically there is no point for the others to keep on working on that task since they are slower and they can all move on to work on something else. Should there be a point for them to keep on working to make it faster? Like they all roll once as a group with a modifier with any support staff member leaving or joining the task increasing/decreasing the duration.
Mind, I already find the maximum duration most of these tasks can take to be nothing short of prodigious, though perhaps only impressive when compared to what we do these days. This being future tech and all. I do recall the 5th Element movie reconstructing a body within minutes.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on July 25, 2017, 07:03:32 PM
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As shown above, a stealthy super will be pretty troublesome to target at all. And if you instead focus on getting enough DR and damage reduction, being hit isn't that bad on the first place as you'll be able to shrugg off the damage.

Riese has you beat unless you try and be stealthy with a 350m tall robot. And the utility of DR with the amount of damage here is... questionable.

But since this is the second time things seem to have been different and the last edit to Supers was Thursday: how many of these things have been edited since the conversation began? It's getting confusing. <_<

Also, this seems pretty backwards: supers are the sneaky ones and work best small? Eh?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Fzzr on July 25, 2017, 07:45:54 PM
Just out of curiosity, to anyone in this thread using a super/in a game with a super: What do the build/tactics look like? Maybe there's some obvious easy thing I'm missing.

Mine is focused around building up Attacker and Predict with non-weapon maneuvers (eg. Chest Blaster) and then using Yell and other spirits with Full Attacks to do spike damage or use weapon-based maneuvers more effectively. Defensive weapons are used as needed to keep the attacker/predict counter going on other targets. Area Melee is another way to keep up Attacker/Predict with multiple targets and also helps with mobility as a secondary effect.

Overall my Super becomes effective against hard targets after two turns. Until then she contributes by cleaning up mooks/soft targets in parallel with building the counter against the real target.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on July 25, 2017, 07:52:49 PM
I have 40STR, so mostly "run at things and try not to die". That's not gone so well even with as high HP and DR as I can get. <_<
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Fzzr on July 25, 2017, 07:59:22 PM
I have 40STR, so mostly "run at things and try not to die". That's not gone so well even with as high HP and DR as I can get. <_<

How the...

Also what level?

Edit: oh, Super 14, if that post from earlier still applies.

...HOW?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on July 25, 2017, 08:10:47 PM
I have 40STR, so mostly "run at things and try not to die". That's not gone so well even with as high HP and DR as I can get. <_<

How the...

Also what level?

Edit: oh, Super 14, if that post from earlier still applies.

...HOW?

Monster classes and magic items. She's a Colossal-sized living fusion reactor. xD

The dying thing? The damage keeps being so huge DR is meaningless, so it's been all defence-skills and spirits to survive. I took Guts predicated on surviving a hit, so...
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on July 25, 2017, 08:16:47 PM
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Question: If a support staff medic or scientist starts a lengthy process (Pilot Patch, Direct Link, Operation, Prototype Weaponry and similar), what happens if the process is interrupted? Such as the support staff or the thing being worked on having to go elsewhere or maybe missing concentration checks to stay focused on the task because of, say, a bloody battle going on over the roof of the building that keeps sending debris and tremors all around the workshop.
You need to re-start from scratch.

Sounds perfect as long as the time it takes to do the task remains the same for the do-over. Keeping track of what was rolled for a given task.
A similar question in the same vein. If multiple support staff work on doing the same thing:
They roll to know who does it the fastest. Then technically there is no point for the others to keep on working on that task since they are slower and they can all move on to work on something else. Should there be a point for them to keep on working to make it faster? Like they all roll once as a group with a modifier with any support staff member leaving or joining the task increasing/decreasing the duration.
Mind, I already find the maximum duration most of these tasks can take to be nothing short of prodigious, though perhaps only impressive when compared to what we do these days. This being future tech and all. I do recall the 5th Element movie reconstructing a body within minutes.

Thing is, they don't really know how long it's gonna take until it's finished. That's why the durations are random in the first place, smallest time is the ideal case scenario where everything goes smoothly, but complications can happen until the last second. So minimum they're all stuck on the task until the fastest one ends and points it out to the others. I could make it rolling after each period of time and this would also lead to theoretically infinite maximum time, but that would be a lot more clunky rolling wise.

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As shown above, a stealthy super will be pretty troublesome to target at all. And if you instead focus on getting enough DR and damage reduction, being hit isn't that bad on the first place as you'll be able to shrugg off the damage.

Riese has you beat unless you try and be stealthy with a 350m tall robot. And the utility of DR with the amount of damage here is... questionable.

But since this is the second time things seem to have been different and the last edit to Supers was Thursday: how many of these things have been edited since the conversation began? It's getting confusing. <_<
There's a changelog in the Index with all significant changes. Today there were just some minor typos.

Also, this seems pretty backwards: supers are the sneaky ones and work best small? Eh?
Well as a matter of fact supers are those that often seem to pop out of nowhere in the middle of the city while Axis knows the Gundam is coming with days/weeks/months of warning. :p

As for size, Undetectable doesn't really care, and the extra damage is nice.

I have 40STR, so mostly "run at things and try not to die". That's not gone so well even with as high HP and DR as I can get. <_<

See, you're a super's fan, I would've expected you to get the pattern-super battles are more drawn out and they always take some time to properly draw out their power. Gundams are the ones that charge right ahead and shoot/stab enemies on the face right away. Mazinger and Getter and whatnot take their sweet time wearing down the enemy before unleashing the finishing move.

Fzzr gets it, and it's how I've been using super NPCs against the party. Build up power until reaching critical mass.

I have 40STR, so mostly "run at things and try not to die". That's not gone so well even with as high HP and DR as I can get. <_<

How the...

Also what level?

Edit: oh, Super 14, if that post from earlier still applies.

...HOW?
It's a gestalt campaign.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on July 25, 2017, 08:26:09 PM
...Getter? Take its time? Getter, whose main pilot is Ryoma whose approach is "charge at a city full of oni and blow his way through it"? Gunbuster and Diebuster also aren't ones for slow drawn-out fighting. It really depends what you're going at--Mazinger is famous for its defence. The Getter? Attack attack attack. Hell, New Getter Robo and Armageddon are pretty agreed on those points--the bigger issue is having enemies that won't die. Evangelion's also not exactly the 'slowest buildup' thing in the world, either. Nor was what I watched of Gao Gai Gar. Seriously, if anything, here, it's just the usual pad-out-episodes approach, not a genre thing.

That's the thing that Amaterasu is templated on. Besides, her abilities make the slow build-up approach comparatively minor. It's why I didn't take Attacker, and Defender, uh... I need to survive to use that one.

Also, a slow build-up isn't going to help when the issue is taking a huge amount of damage pretty quickly. <_>
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Fzzr on July 25, 2017, 08:49:39 PM
Monster classes and magic items. She's a Colossal-sized living fusion reactor. xD

The dying thing? The damage keeps being so huge DR is meaningless, so it's been all defense-skills and spirits to survive. I took Guts predicated on surviving a hit, so...

I hear you on the huge damage. I've been focusing on ways to Not Get Hit for those first few turns (despite having laughable AC). Vambraces of Defense have been great for me when the inevitable inconvenient crit comes along. (The time I got shot down there were two inconvenient crits back to back with no BB turn in between for heals.) DR helps survive long enough to get healed by the BB when things get serious. Prevail also helps out in a pinch.

Fzzr gets it, and it's how I've been using super NPCs against the party. Build up power until reaching critical mass.

Well good to know I'm on the right track. Plan going forward is to take more defensive options (like Alien Alloy to help deal with those freakin' crits) and rearrange some old maneuvers to get more offensive options. The buff to Captain Leadership is going to be a big help.

As for slow-build-up supers vs charge-in-and-attack ones, consider Gurren Lagann (my personal favorite).

1. Charge in like an idiot and blow up some mooks.
2. Get beat up by a real bad guy due to charging in like an idiot.
3. Make a speech or do something cool (or both).
4. Win.

Still involves charging in and trying not to die (with moderate success) but also works on slow buildup. That's more or less how I play Super, though step 3 is sometimes "Evil Super Robot does something unnecessarily brutal".
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on July 25, 2017, 09:03:50 PM
Either way, I think it's pretty clear step one for a Super Robot is "charge in gloriously". It's just the "don't die" part that's hard--with rending weapons common (and our level in Phantasy Star), the issue is that a single hit does heavy damage even with DR (let alone crits). But "I Am Invincible!" and (hopefully) the Invincible spirit part should help somewhat without playing "nab all the Real spirits again".

Plus Attacker/Defender rely on fighting the same foe for a while. Sometimes hard.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Fzzr on July 25, 2017, 09:38:24 PM
Either way, I think it's pretty clear step one for a Super Robot is "charge in gloriously". It's just the "don't die" part that's hard--with rending weapons common (and our level in Phantasy Star), the issue is that a single hit does heavy damage even with DR (let alone crits). But "I Am Invincible!" and (hopefully) the Invincible spirit part should help somewhat without playing "nab all the Real spirits again".

Plus Attacker/Defender rely on fighting the same foe for a while. Sometimes hard.

Yeah. Being a Super ain't easy, but at least it's fun.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on July 25, 2017, 09:45:25 PM
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Thing is, they don't really know how long it's gonna take until it's finished. That's why the durations are random in the first place, smallest time is the ideal case scenario where everything goes smoothly, but complications can happen until the last second. So minimum they're all stuck on the task until the fastest one ends and points it out to the others. I could make it rolling after each period of time and this would also lead to theoretically infinite maximum time, but that would be a lot more clunky rolling wise.
Good idea! Makes the most sense as well.
Under the understanding that they do not know the result of the roll (or at least trust the players to not abuse that they roll the time it takes when starting the process and so actually know how long each of them will take). Unless it is rolled secretly by the DM as is the case for some skill checks.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on July 25, 2017, 10:11:39 PM
Looking at the changelog I never knew existed:

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Reduced Alteisen Riese hardpoints to 3. Maybe somebody now will use it... Hahaha of course not!

Of course not, we're not level 19. That would be a tad difficult. :P
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: YuweaCurtis on July 26, 2017, 08:57:52 AM
I dunno man, I still feel stealth is more proper to Real.

Also, I'm starting to be bugged. If people are saying Real is better and there's numbers to back it, why be so stubborn? Do you want Real to be played that badly?
Why not at least try to make the suggested changes to Super Robots? You could always change it back later. And its. not like a lot was asked for, just cheaper nanites which probably won't fix the gap anyways.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on July 26, 2017, 10:20:19 AM
...Getter? Take its time? Getter, whose main pilot is Ryoma whose approach is "charge at a city full of oni and blow his way through it"? Gunbuster and Diebuster also aren't ones for slow drawn-out fighting. It really depends what you're going at--Mazinger is famous for its defence. The Getter? Attack attack attack. Hell, New Getter Robo and Armageddon are pretty agreed on those points--the bigger issue is having enemies that won't die. Evangelion's also not exactly the 'slowest buildup' thing in the world, either. Nor was what I watched of Gao Gai Gar. Seriously, if anything, here, it's just the usual pad-out-episodes approach, not a genre thing.

Mook cleaning is mook cleaning, but when Getter faces a proper enemy, suddenly it's splitting up to dodge attacks while cycling through its 3 forms. Getter Robo doesn't enter slug-out matches hoping it can outlast its opponents, it hit-and-runs like a boss.

I dunno man, I still feel stealth is more proper to Real.

Also, I'm starting to be bugged. If people are saying Real is better and there's numbers to back it, why be so stubborn? Do you want Real to be played that badly?
Why not at least try to make the suggested changes to Super Robots? You could always change it back later. And its. not like a lot was asked for, just cheaper nanites which probably won't fix the gap anyways.

Because all I've seen are theoretical numbers, yet in actual campaign gameplay here the last boss they fought and seemingly left quite the lasting impression on the party was a pure super gestalt. Ketaro plays the closest thing to a pure real, and he lost on a 1x1 against a  super earlier (althought it was close).

More in particular we already tried cheap nanomachines when this started and the result was a) every single super taking them and b) the most unkillable build that I've seen so far since starting this project.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on July 26, 2017, 10:51:30 AM
So effectively, Getter has great dodge AC? :P

It's extremely aggressive. Not a careful build-up-over-time thing. Hell, they're pretty damn eager to use special attacks.

Anyway, I'm working on something right now. This has revealed two independent things so far: one, why the fuck would anyone want to use the Wildschwein? I'm baffled by its existence. #2: shouldn't the 7th-level shield accessory be giving 35HP, not 30?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on July 26, 2017, 11:32:54 AM
Okay, here we are. (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Nltyv3X-Bgy8qFFV_FysGMRwA-vAg0oO14gSuNABe1Q/edit?usp=sharing) It's a spreadsheet comparing the numbers for Super Robots and Real Robots, sans things like Great One (because that has so many size consequences and conditions involving division etc. that it'll take a while to sort it all out), but that seems to lean heavily towards being a trap defensively (Great Plate: +4 Nat AC, half dodge AC works out to a net -2 AC over the course of a build, plus Colossal has a -8 AC penalty in and of itself to get the most HP)

The general trend seems to be: there's not really room to customise the base Super. You take Plating and Agility else you fall behind, that's it. Same with targetting--unless you've got the Dex/Str to compensate, you're going to fall behind the same-tier Reals without taking both of them. After Real II, it tends towards the base Real mecha containing at least one thing with equivalent defences and AC before you start digging in the arsenal stuff, and the high-tier arsenal upgrades totally throw that one out--+7 Shield AC is pretty much equivalent to the Super getting an extra 6 pilot levels of upgrades for one. If you both take one of the same upgrade, then the Reals are still winning there.

Real Robots flat out win the weapon war, no contest there. Supers can stack damage, that's pretty much it, and don't have the same monstrous base damage dice to pull on. It only gets more out of whack later on--the number of options there before arsenal weaponry is... silly.

The Alteisen Reise is completely out of scale with literally everything else.

So... as it more or less works out, Super Robots don't have much choice on customising statblocks, because it's hemmed in to such a specific area that you fall behind if you don't invest everything. If you actually want to customise in that sense--more tanking vs more dodging etc.--without actively making yourself worse, you're better off picking Reals because there's actually room for some variety there--HP and DR aren't intrinsically pinned to having the requisite AC.

That, and any variety in battle tactics pretty much requires it because every Super Robot attack consists of "run in and hit it in melee". Appropriate, but not room for much variety.

EDIT: Fixed the Vahlhawk line as that was edited after I'd done that tier. <_>
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on July 26, 2017, 01:45:03 PM
Ketaro plays the closest thing to a pure real, and he lost on a 1x1 against a  super earlier (althought it was close).

I haven't had the opportunity to use my Real Robot since the very first fight. It did quite well.

That 1v1 was Super Nano vs. Super Nano.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on July 26, 2017, 06:07:57 PM
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I haven't had the opportunity to use my Real Robot since the very first fight. It did quite well.
It should be quite fantastic now, if the principle behind the build works as well as it felt it would in theory.  ;)
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on July 26, 2017, 08:09:40 PM
There's something contradictory in there. Druids are divine casters, yet the Divine Pilot seems to be even more unpopular than the Real Pilot, as in people here don't even seem to pretend they exist. Considering all the self buffs in the cleric list, it honestly surprises me.
The forums them selves don't seem to like Clerics. Plus Divine Pilot doesn't get Domains, or Turn Undead, is pretty much limited to 32 Spells instead of a couple thousand, doesn't qualify for Cleric-related Feats, and you KOed every deity every in your campaigns because you don't like D&D.

I think it also comes back to many of the buffs are a waste of time, like normally Bite of the Wearbear is amazing with it's +16 Strength. But +8 damage isn't much compared to Arsenal options, like Twin Field Lances (12d12*2). Even with the quadruple gain (heavy's x2, plus two attacks), and starting with a low 20 Str for a larger impact, the +18% gain in damage requires six rounds of full-attacks for the gain to make up losing a round fighting to buffing. D&D's buffs simply have less meaning unless they are binary changers. And you regularly ignore those too.

But bigger point being several people like power, and if barely anybody's picking the supposed power option, then it simply can't be that powerful.
So then it's agreed? Real Arcanist should be a thing, clearly Real Pilot needs buffs.

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I haven't had the opportunity to use my Real Robot since the very first fight. It did quite well.
It should be quite fantastic now, if the principle behind the build works as well as it felt it would in theory.  ;)
Yeah, I think we should try putting SorO's idea in game and see if it holds up. He'd be willing to restat his sheet up too if he ever gets a day off. It'd be like Fate's Beserker, given the Spell buffs and how the Upgrades for dipping Arcane Pilot apply to Real mechs, any mecha he pilots (and steals) becomes a Noble Mechasim and it really fits the theme of the dragon pilot is the superior part in the assembly.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on July 26, 2017, 10:28:09 PM
I was referring to ketaro's build for katherine, not real robots as a whole. ...Though now that I think about it, the powerful part is mostly handled by Kath's "super pilot" side. Soooooo nevermind.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on July 26, 2017, 10:49:37 PM
Hm, I have a proposal, based on the data--and the fact that, the roughly once-a-tier Real that just has more defences in general aside, there's a general parity between the raw AC of Super and Reals--and the kind of glaring flaw that the customisable robot isn't that customisable... don't treat Plating and Agility as distinct upgrades for cost purposes. Rather, have it so you can take any combination of either that would equal the total of two separate upgrades.

It would probably need some adjustment to the two AC-focused Great One upgrades, but otherwise it would allow for some variability in Super stats without blatantly declaring that you enjoy having abnormally low AC.

That, and you could actually build a tank Super that does not, in fact, top out at HP comparable to the most fragile Real VII mecha unless it decides it wants a bunch of size and touch penalties.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Fzzr on July 26, 2017, 11:53:46 PM
Hm, I have a proposal, based on the data--and the fact that, the roughly once-a-tier Real that just has more defences in general aside, there's a general parity between the raw AC of Super and Reals--and the kind of glaring flaw that the customisable robot isn't that customisable... don't treat Plating and Agility as distinct upgrades for cost purposes. Rather, have it so you can take any combination of either that would equal the total of two separate upgrades.

It would probably need some adjustment to the two AC-focused Great One upgrades, but otherwise it would allow for some variability in Super stats without blatantly declaring that you enjoy having abnormally low AC.

That, and you could actually build a tank Super that does not, in fact, top out at HP comparable to the most fragile Real VII mecha unless it decides it wants a bunch of size and touch penalties.

I don't understand what you're proposing there. How would that look if you compared something like a level 6 Real Pilot in a Scutzwald to a Level 6 Super Robot?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on July 27, 2017, 12:04:18 AM
Hm, I have a proposal, based on the data--and the fact that, the roughly once-a-tier Real that just has more defences in general aside, there's a general parity between the raw AC of Super and Reals--and the kind of glaring flaw that the customisable robot isn't that customisable... don't treat Plating and Agility as distinct upgrades for cost purposes. Rather, have it so you can take any combination of either that would equal the total of two separate upgrades.

It would probably need some adjustment to the two AC-focused Great One upgrades, but otherwise it would allow for some variability in Super stats without blatantly declaring that you enjoy having abnormally low AC.

That, and you could actually build a tank Super that does not, in fact, top out at HP comparable to the most fragile Real VII mecha unless it decides it wants a bunch of size and touch penalties.

I don't understand what you're proposing there. How would that look if you compared something like a level 6 Real Pilot in a Scutzwald to a Level 6 Super Robot?

Okay, currently a level 5 Super can have a +8 AC bonus. A level 6 can have +10 (level 7 Real also has +10--essentially, there's a flip-flop every other level between who has better total AC). Real II Mecha, without accessories, all have +8AC. All four of them. Despite not having the same Natural AC or Dodge AC bonuses.

The difference is that to have that AC, a Super has to invest in a particular path--3 Plating, 3 Agility at level 5, 4 Plating 4 Agility at level 6. You can't have 8 plating 0 agility or any other variant--every Super Robot, to have the same base AC bonus Reals are predicting, has to max Plating and Agility--which means every Super is going to end up with the same AC, DR, HP, movement speed...

What my proposal changes is that you could take Plating or Agility so long as the sum of both is no more than the current total of both upgrades.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on July 27, 2017, 01:16:48 AM
I was referring to ketaro's build for katherine, not real robots as a whole. ...Though now that I think about it, the powerful part is mostly handled by Kath's "super pilot" side. Soooooo nevermind.

I know I'm a disgusting hybrid anomaly  :pout
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Fzzr on July 27, 2017, 02:58:09 AM
Hm, I have a proposal, based on the data--and the fact that, the roughly once-a-tier Real that just has more defences in general aside, there's a general parity between the raw AC of Super and Reals--and the kind of glaring flaw that the customisable robot isn't that customisable... don't treat Plating and Agility as distinct upgrades for cost purposes. Rather, have it so you can take any combination of either that would equal the total of two separate upgrades.

It would probably need some adjustment to the two AC-focused Great One upgrades, but otherwise it would allow for some variability in Super stats without blatantly declaring that you enjoy having abnormally low AC.

That, and you could actually build a tank Super that does not, in fact, top out at HP comparable to the most fragile Real VII mecha unless it decides it wants a bunch of size and touch penalties.

I don't understand what you're proposing there. How would that look if you compared something like a level 6 Real Pilot in a Scutzwald to a Level 6 Super Robot?

Okay, currently a level 5 Super can have a +8 AC bonus. A level 6 can have +10 (level 7 Real also has +10--essentially, there's a flip-flop every other level between who has better total AC). Real II Mecha, without accessories, all have +8AC. All four of them. Despite not having the same Natural AC or Dodge AC bonuses.

The difference is that to have that AC, a Super has to invest in a particular path--3 Plating, 3 Agility at level 5, 4 Plating 4 Agility at level 6. You can't have 8 plating 0 agility or any other variant--every Super Robot, to have the same base AC bonus Reals are predicting, has to max Plating and Agility--which means every Super is going to end up with the same AC, DR, HP, movement speed...

What my proposal changes is that you could take Plating or Agility so long as the sum of both is no more than the current total of both upgrades.
So you're saying instead of the current "You cannot pick each option more times than your 1+(1/2 pilot level)" there should be a special rule for Plating and Agility that says "You may choose any combination of Plating and Agility as long as the total is not more than 2 + pilot level." This would be the same number of points allocatable between them, but it means a Super could match a Real's AC while also having the choice to go all in on speed or DR, rather than being forced to split between the two.

Did I restate that correctly?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Fzzr on July 27, 2017, 03:04:32 AM
Oh, and I forgot to mention: One thing that's clear from that data, regardless of all other opinions about Real/Super balance, is the the Alteisen Reise is still OP compared to other reals of tier 7.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on July 27, 2017, 06:49:00 AM
Oh, and I forgot to mention: One thing that's clear from that data, regardless of all other opinions about Real/Super balance, is the the Alteisen Reise is still OP compared to other reals of tier 7.
Scroll further down?

Alteisen Riese
SI/SP: Large/125mu
HP/EN: 400hp/100en (+10en/rnd)
DR: 40
SV: +7
NA/DG: +22/+0
AR/HD: 25/3
Gear: -
Weapons:
   +9 revolving bunker, melee (6d6, 19/x3, grabbing, power, rending), 6 ammo.
   +11 gatling gun, 20mu ranged (6d6, 20/x2, pinning), 20 ammo.
   +10 plasma horn, melee (5d8, 20/x3, defensive, power, rending), -10en/hit.
   +13 claymore avalance, 20mu ranged (20d12, 19/x3 area, brutal, heavy, pinning, power, push, rending), 4 ammo.
Astranagant
SI/SP: Huge/80mu & fly(good) 60mu
HP/EN: 250hp/160en (+50hp/rnd & +48en/rnd)
DR: 30
SV: +6
NA/DG: +11/+11
AR/HD: 10/4
Gear: Regeneration 2 & Reactor 2
Weapons:
   +9 attracter shower, 100mu ranged (11d10, 19/x2, area, brutal, disarming, pinning, power), 6 ammo.
   +9 axion cannon, 150mu ranged (25d10, 19/x4, brutal, concussive, downfall, heavy, power), -45en/shot.
   +9 infinity cylinder, ∞ ranged (13d12, 20/x5, area, brutal, disarming, heavy, pinning, power), 1 ammo.
   +9 zol orichalcon sword, melee (11d8, 18/x2, downfall, pushing, rending), -15en/hit.
   +10 anti photon vulcan, 20mu ranged (6d10, 20/x2, brutal, defensive, pushing), -5en/shot.
   +10 t-link feather x2, 50mu ranged (9d12, 19/x2, brutal, grabbing, rending, twin-linked), ammo 12.
Astranagant's bigger size which makes it easier to hit but it has flight. It has less HP/DR but comes with regeneration, only loses out on a single point of Save bonus too. It has the same +22 bonus to AC except half of it is Dodge which has it's own pros/cons. Less arsenal space but comes with more and higher damaging weapons. It also has more Hardpoints too.

Loadouts
Of the 7th tier choices, since you can argue the Alteisen Riese is the "tank" build so pilots will probably select the Z.O Armor, Artificial Aegis, & Sistema Voyeur due to it's binary requirement. This gives it +30 HP, +7 DR, +14 AC, +7 Fort & +7 Reflex, and immunity to Rending/Power. Boring.

The Astranagant is more of a balanced choice, so let's go Advanced AI, Steel Soul, Minmei Doll, & Laplace's Laptop. This gives it +5 DR, +12 AC, +2 Reflex & +7 Will, +5 Attack, +35mu to Ranged, & +70mu Spd. Foresight so it can't lose it's Dodge Bonus (& has other uses). It's highly spirited, +100 points, +5 regen, -40% costs, and along with a -40% reduction in energy costs on Maneuvers it allows it's pilot to spam their Class/Spirit related abilities far more than the Riese. Like it pays for using Guard for the first nine rounds of combat, reducing all damage by -75%.

Overall
SorO likes the Astranagant.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on July 27, 2017, 08:24:13 AM
There's not much reason not to pick Steel Soul at arsenal VII. 40% less spirit usage with all your spirits for a hardpoint is amazing. For any build. Everything else it gives is just a bonus.

@osle: Artificial Savagery System [Rev](IV): Transformation.
Does it mention what it actually transforms into?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on July 27, 2017, 09:20:56 AM
I'm not sure that you can claim that one option is hugely better or worse than another when you deliberately take all the interesting options for one. That's a loaded argument. Also, you forgot to specifically mention that the Riese has no inherent flight access (and it has a Beam Coat). But at least they both have apparent niches... whilst having more HP and DR than a Super anyway. Out of the VII Reals, it's a case of "why would I take the Alegrias?"

Steel Soul is ridiculous. It's bad enough the Arsenal VI option is nearly better than maxing out Soul of the Machine (the regen does it), but letting Reals use all their spirits--including Zeal--for cheap and using Ship Captain or Super Pilot spirits for less than the original class and to get AC, DR, to-hit, and a will-save bonus all at once?

S-Adaptor: currently the most useless accessory. I struggle to think why you would have a pressing need for an amphibious mecha. Particularly at that level.


Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: YuweaCurtis on July 27, 2017, 10:19:19 AM
There's not much reason not to pick Steel Soul at arsenal VII. 40% less spirit usage with all your spirits for a hardpoint is amazing. For any build. Everything else it gives is just a bonus.

@osle: Artificial Savagery System [Rev](IV): Transformation.
Does it mention what it actually transforms into?

I'm thinking Tensor's Transformation, or w/e its called.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on July 27, 2017, 10:26:47 AM
Steel Soul, with a baseline spirit pool, is worth +76 Spirit total, plus other benefits. +80 at level 20. If I've got this right, it also turns Spirit Up into an effective +33 total spirit, so a minimal investment lets it go really, really far--and combined with Spirit Regen, a 15-cost Spirit effectively costs 4. Numbers! It's actually something that Super Pilots can stay ahead in, but Steel Soul is problematically good--at a -2 to AC, DR, and to-hit it rolls two accessories into one and it multiplies how useful spirit up is when said feat can be taken six times. One accessory shouldn't be giving stat bonuses and +160 effective spirit.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on July 27, 2017, 12:20:38 PM
So effectively, Getter has great dodge AC? :P

It's extremely aggressive. Not a careful build-up-over-time thing. Hell, they're pretty damn eager to use special attacks.
Splitting up in your component forms to plink away with the fighter jet weapons every other turn is extremely cautious and pretty much the opposite of leading with your best attacks. Neither of the getter pilots got their job for being particularly destructive (Ryoma planned his vengeance for his father's honor for years in some minor martial arts tournament, the second one's got delusions of grandeur but never really did anything big before being recruited, the third's a mountain monk), they got their jobs because they were the best at staying alive in a fight, whereas every previous getter pilot had got themselves killed in combat.

Anyway, I'm working on something right now. This has revealed two independent things so far: one, why the fuck would anyone want to use the Wildschwein? I'm baffled by its existence. #2: shouldn't the 7th-level shield accessory be giving 35HP, not 30?
Nerfed the valhwak so Wildschwein leads in hardpoints now. 7th-level shield extra HP is intended.

Okay, here we are. (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Nltyv3X-Bgy8qFFV_FysGMRwA-vAg0oO14gSuNABe1Q/edit?usp=sharing) It's a spreadsheet comparing the numbers for Super Robots and Real Robots, sans things like Great One (because that has so many size consequences and conditions involving division etc. that it'll take a while to sort it all out), but that seems to lean heavily towards being a trap defensively (Great Plate: +4 Nat AC, half dodge AC works out to a net -2 AC over the course of a build, plus Colossal has a -8 AC penalty in and of itself to get the most HP)

The general trend seems to be: there's not really room to customise the base Super. You take Plating and Agility else you fall behind, that's it. Same with targetting--unless you've got the Dex/Str to compensate, you're going to fall behind the same-tier Reals without taking both of them. After Real II, it tends towards the base Real mecha containing at least one thing with equivalent defences and AC before you start digging in the arsenal stuff, and the high-tier arsenal upgrades totally throw that one out--+7 Shield AC is pretty much equivalent to the Super getting an extra 6 pilot levels of upgrades for one. If you both take one of the same upgrade, then the Reals are still winning there.
Meh, AC's honestly overrated. Besides standard D&D stuff like touch attacks and attacks that target saves, in a SRW game you've got Strike and Power and whatnot. I even added a bunch of feats so any pilot can attack vs saves instead of vs AC with any weapon.

Real Robots flat out win the weapon war, no contest there. Supers can stack damage, that's pretty much it, and don't have the same monstrous base damage dice to pull on. It only gets more out of whack later on--the number of options there before arsenal weaponry is... silly.
Maybe you missed the part where Supers are supposed to be buffing their weapons with maneuvers, which they can get favored besides having more spirit points for their trouble.

That, and any variety in battle tactics pretty much requires it because every Super Robot attack consists of "run in and hit it in melee". Appropriate, but not room for much variety.
...Really, aren't you seeing the maneuver column and custom schools in the super pilot? And if you count arcane/psycho pilots as supers, then even more attack variety.

Ketaro plays the closest thing to a pure real, and he lost on a 1x1 against a  super earlier (althought it was close).

I haven't had the opportunity to use my Real Robot since the very first fight. It did quite well.

That 1v1 was Super Nano vs. Super Nano.
Ups. :blush

Still the point stands, the most feared enemy in the campaign was a super. The reals are now part of Hugo's harem or nobody remembers them at all.

Hm, I have a proposal, based on the data--and the fact that, the roughly once-a-tier Real that just has more defences in general aside, there's a general parity between the raw AC of Super and Reals--and the kind of glaring flaw that the customisable robot isn't that customisable... don't treat Plating and Agility as distinct upgrades for cost purposes. Rather, have it so you can take any combination of either that would equal the total of two separate upgrades.

It would probably need some adjustment to the two AC-focused Great One upgrades, but otherwise it would allow for some variability in Super stats without blatantly declaring that you enjoy having abnormally low AC.

That, and you could actually build a tank Super that does not, in fact, top out at HP comparable to the most fragile Real VII mecha unless it decides it wants a bunch of size and touch penalties.
You know, Great Plating already is supposed to be that. Go over armor/HP limit for supers, less dodge.

Also added King Frame and Emperor Frame to further progress Great One/Tek Knight or Zero Pattern. And hyperdimensional step for the lulz.

And since you believe so hard AC is the ultimate and only true defense sure, I'll throw some scaling to it with great plating.


@osle: Artificial Savagery System [Rev](IV): Transformation.
Does it mention what it actually transforms into?
I'm honestly starting to believe you can't be bothered to read base mecha rules since you can't be bothered to read the basic D&D rules either. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/transformation.htm) It's a spell (as it should be obvious by the [rev] tag), a core spell at that freely available online, and I don't know why I bother because you'll have "forgotten" it as soon as it isn't convenient for you in a nanosecond, but I'm positive thinking like that.

Steel Soul, with a baseline spirit pool, is worth +76 Spirit total, plus other benefits. +80 at level 20. If I've got this right, it also turns Spirit Up into an effective +33 total spirit, so a minimal investment lets it go really, really far--and combined with Spirit Regen, a 15-cost Spirit effectively costs 4. Numbers! It's actually something that Super Pilots can stay ahead in, but Steel Soul is problematically good--at a -2 to AC, DR, and to-hit it rolls two accessories into one and it multiplies how useful spirit up is when said feat can be taken six times. One accessory shouldn't be giving stat bonuses and +160 effective spirit.
Steel Soul being a bit too good I can agree with, so reduced the spirit discount to 20%.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on July 27, 2017, 12:28:46 PM
Quote
Maybe you missed the part where Supers are supposed to be buffing their weapons with maneuvers, which they can get favored besides having more spirit points for their trouble.

Er, it was just the reason for not including actual weapons in the table--it's a foregone conclusion how they work out. That and there's just too many. It gets cluttered.

Quote
You know, Great Plating already is supposed to be that. Go over armor/HP limit for supers, less dodge.

A single pair of mutually exclusive options down a specific size path being the only way to have differentiation in base stats? We've already brought up Getter enough to note that Supers can be made of spun glass as well. :p

And it was a suggestion to actually add some variability there, not "every Super that doesn't want a handicap has to take all Plating and all Agility regardless of intent".

Quote
And since you believe so hard AC is the ultimate and only true defense sure, I'll throw some scaling to it with great plating.

Taking an option that gives you AC shouldn't ever have lead to less AC. Which is how it worked: with Great Plating, you got +4 Natural AC. +4 AC from taking four levels of Growth. So that's +8 AC immediately offset by -8AC from being Colossal. Meanwhile, you're -5AC down on dodge, for a grand total of -13 Touch AC.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on July 27, 2017, 12:50:18 PM
Quote
You know, Great Plating already is supposed to be that. Go over armor/HP limit for supers, less dodge.

A single pair of mutually exclusive options down a specific size path being the only way to have differentiation in base stats? We've already brought up Getter enough to note that Supers can be made of spun glass as well. :p
I personally think of Getter as a plating+agility build since it can take some hits. But fun fact, in one of the SRW video games defense (that basically worked as DR) was bugged in that it didn't do anything, so all supers were pretty much useless. Except for Getter who did have some solid dodge plus Getter split that worked as basically a 50% miss change against everything.

And it was a suggestion to actually add some variability there, not "every Super that doesn't want a handicap has to take all Plating and all Agility regardless of intent".
You can and could go Great Plating and ignore Agility or Great Agility and ignore Plating.

Quote
And since you believe so hard AC is the ultimate and only true defense sure, I'll throw some scaling to it with great plating.

Taking an option that gives you AC shouldn't ever have lead to less AC. Which is how it worked: with Great Plating, you got +4 Natural AC. +4 AC from taking four levels of Growth. So that's +8 AC immediately offset by -8AC from being Colossal. Meanwhile, you're -5AC down on dodge, for a grand total of -13 Touch AC.
The main point of Great Plating wasn't the AC, it was the extra HP and DR. And you can't be down on Dodge if you never pick Agility.  :smirk
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on July 27, 2017, 12:57:55 PM
Quote
Quote
You know, Great Plating already is supposed to be that. Go over armor/HP limit for supers, less dodge.

A single pair of mutually exclusive options down a specific size path being the only way to have differentiation in base stats? We've already brought up Getter enough to note that Supers can be made of spun glass as well. :p
I personally think of Getter as a plating+agility build since it can take some hits. But fun fact, in one of the SRW video games defense (that basically worked as DR) was bugged in that it didn't do anything, so all supers were pretty much useless. Except for Getter who did have some solid dodge plus Getter split that worked as basically a 50% miss change against everything.
Really? Thing's always screwed when it actually takes a hit.

Quote
And it was a suggestion to actually add some variability there, not "every Super that doesn't want a handicap has to take all Plating and all Agility regardless of intent".
You can and could go Great Plating and ignore Agility or Great Agility and ignore Plating.

Ignoring plating is totally nonviable. You end up with level 10 HP at level 20. Ignoring Agility would still set you back. It seems like there's pretty clear AC benchmarks, given that after the first tier of Reals, everything has the same AC.

Quote
Quote
And since you believe so hard AC is the ultimate and only true defense sure, I'll throw some scaling to it with great plating.

Taking an option that gives you AC shouldn't ever have lead to less AC. Which is how it worked: with Great Plating, you got +4 Natural AC. +4 AC from taking four levels of Growth. So that's +8 AC immediately offset by -8AC from being Colossal. Meanwhile, you're -5AC down on dodge, for a grand total of -13 Touch AC.
The main point of Great Plating wasn't the AC, it was the extra HP and DR. And you can't be down on Dodge if you never pick Agility.  :smirk
[/quote]

Even if AC isn't everything, you're not going to convince me that passing up fully half a die roll of AC and any movement speed is a good choice. Plating itself isn't optional otherwise you don't have enough HP to use any of the other defensive stuff. :eh
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Fzzr on July 27, 2017, 01:07:10 PM
Overall
SorO likes the Astranagant.

Okay, fair enough.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on July 27, 2017, 01:24:00 PM
Quote
Quote
You know, Great Plating already is supposed to be that. Go over armor/HP limit for supers, less dodge.

A single pair of mutually exclusive options down a specific size path being the only way to have differentiation in base stats? We've already brought up Getter enough to note that Supers can be made of spun glass as well. :p
I personally think of Getter as a plating+agility build since it can take some hits. But fun fact, in one of the SRW video games defense (that basically worked as DR) was bugged in that it didn't do anything, so all supers were pretty much useless. Except for Getter who did have some solid dodge plus Getter split that worked as basically a 50% miss change against everything.
Really? Thing's always screwed when it actually takes a hit.
Can tank some tentacles (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkc6E47KBNI).
There was also the mirror match (https://youtu.be/DgHPFpZt6lg?t=1133).

Quote
And it was a suggestion to actually add some variability there, not "every Super that doesn't want a handicap has to take all Plating and all Agility regardless of intent".
You can and could go Great Plating and ignore Agility or Great Agility and ignore Plating.

Ignoring plating is totally nonviable. You end up with level 10 HP at level 20. Ignoring Agility would still set you back. It seems like there's pretty clear AC benchmarks, given that after the first tier of Reals, everything has the same AC.
Alegrias has 200 HP. Only 5 more than a no-plating 19th level super and 5 less than a no-plating 20th level super.
ART 1 (VI) has 135 HP while a no-plating 16th level super would have 165.

The Astelion, a 10th level real, has a glorious 80 HP, which is less than what a no-plating 20th level that took the halved HP option would have.

As for AC, the generic reals have less, bigger reals also have less due to size penalties.

Even if AC isn't everything, you're not going to convince me that passing up fully half a die roll of AC and any movement speed is a good choice. Plating itself isn't optional otherwise you don't have enough HP to use any of the other defensive stuff. :eh

Weren't you claiming that max HP supers get one-shot? Then it's strange you're complaining about having less HP, you'll still be getting one-shot by your calculations, but at least you'll be harder to hit. :P

But really, the base HP progression of a super is faster than the plating progression. Even if you skip all of it, you're not losing more than 33% HP to a full plating build unless they go Great One.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on July 27, 2017, 01:53:25 PM
Quote
Can tank some tentacles.
There was also the mirror match.

That's HP vs AC. It turns out to be surprisingly easy to cut/bite through the thing--especially when compared with some other supers.

Ah, a pair of numbers were flipped in the formula I'd written so it was down 100 HP. Oops. At least that means that no Plating still leaves you approximately with the Allegrias... except, you know, 10 AC down. Same if you don't go agility. Great one is a great addition if you're going as big as possible. Everything else has no choice about taking the other two; this isn't a small drop in AC, it's the difference between getting hit half the time and getting hit on anything but a 1.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: YuweaCurtis on July 27, 2017, 01:54:41 PM
Great, more defense based stuff to mull over. Send help.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on July 27, 2017, 02:19:58 PM
Quote
Can tank some tentacles.
There was also the mirror match.

That's HP vs AC. It turns out to be surprisingly easy to cut/bite through the thing--especially when compared with some other supers.

Ah, a pair of numbers were flipped in the formula I'd written so it was down 100 HP. Oops. At least that means that no Plating still leaves you approximately with the Allegrias... except, you know, 10 AC down. Same if you don't go agility. Great one is a great addition if you're going as big as possible. Everything else has no choice about taking the other two; this isn't a small drop in AC, it's the difference between getting hit half the time and getting hit on anything but a 1.

With the new upgrades, you can get either 2 Base+11 Plating +4 Great Plating+4 King +4 Emperor=+ 25 Natural Armor, or 11 Agility+4 Great Agility +4 King +4 Emperor= +23 Dodge. For medium size, those numbers get even bigger for larger sizes.

Supers already can get more natural armor than the Alteisen Riese or more dodge than the Alegrias. What else do you want? What will it take to satisfy you? That I write "supers get real stats before adding upgrades"? Because it seems nothing less will be enough to please super fans.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on July 27, 2017, 02:32:46 PM
Because I wasn't asking for more (an option not sabotaging your AC aside), just some possibility to not have everything go down the same damn path. Right now it's like if every Real from II upwards had the same Natural AC and Dodge AC as everything else in the same tier.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on July 27, 2017, 03:06:07 PM
There is great plating. Great agility. Balanced plating and agility. Going smaller for size AC. Going larger size with great plating. Larger size with great agility.  Not maximizing either and just lagging some AC behind while spending points somewhere else. That is a bit more variety than reals get.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: YuweaCurtis on July 27, 2017, 04:08:26 PM
For the Experimental Module, what exactly is the upgrade point limit? Does a material pay for 1 point or to each point of the same upgrade? Or even everything under that material's list?

Also the list needs updating, unless you don't want anything else available through it.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on July 27, 2017, 06:32:44 PM
Quote
I'm thinking Tensor's Transformation, or w/e its called.
Ah, yes. Tenser's Transformation indeed, makes sense now. Figures they'd change it to merely Transformation after removing the setting-specifics. Thought it somehow referred to the Transform mecha ability. Pretty neat for a non-caster.

Quote
For the Experimental Module, what exactly is the upgrade point limit?
It varies depending on the pilot of the mecha you apply it to. 1+(1/2 the pilot level of the mecha's pilot).

Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Fzzr on July 27, 2017, 10:17:59 PM
Honestly I'd be content with Supers exactly as they are now if damage across the system wasn’t so high. Around Arsenal IV I find that Super and Real defenses both start to fall behind relative to available weapon damage.

My single biggest issue with damage balance is Heavy weapon abuse. Under normal circumstances, they can be used only as a fullround action, but some maneuvers let you attack with a Heavy weapon as a standard (or even immediate!) action. Then there's the Alpha Strike type Full Attack, which lets you fire essentially all your weapons in one turn, including multiple Heavy weapons.

My suggested fix for that is to change the description of Heavy weapons to this (changes italicized):

Quote
This weapon takes a fullround action to use. It cannot make iteratives, but you can ready up an attack with an Heavy weapon as a fullround action. If any ability would allow you to full attack with a weapon after movement, then it can be used to perform one attack with this weapon. Any ability that would allow you to use a weapon and takes less than a fullround action requires a fullround action to use with a Heavy weapon. If you cannot perform a fullround action at the time you wish to use that maneuver or ability, you may not use a Heavy Weapon with it. A Heavy weapon may not be used as part of the type of Full Attack that uses more than one of the mecha's weapons, as it already requires a fullround action to use. Those weapons add twice Str/Dex modifier to damage rolls instead of just once. If a weapon has somehow the Heavy and Defensive properties simultaneously, then only the Heavy property applies.

This would mean you couldn’t use a Heavy weapon as part of a Counter off your turn. You couldn’t use something like Iron Blow to use a Heavy weapon and move in the same turn because it does not already require a fullround action to use, instead it would just let you fire the Heavy weapon without response. You would also no longer be able to avoid the "can't iterate a Heavy weapon attack" rule by just having multiple different Heavy weapons (or multiple copies of one) and doing a multi-weapon Full Attack.

Zooming in on the interaction between Heavy weapons and maneuvers that use weapons and take standard actions, here’s my view on them. Every maneuver has some benefit to the weapon you’re using. For example, Colossal Strike is a touch attack, doubles damage, and ignores DR - a great deal at 35EN. However, every single such maneuver has an unwritten additional benefit: “And if it’s a Heavy weapon, you can use it and still move that turn”. Taking a fullround action to use is the defining cost of Heavy weapons, so removing that is an incredible benefit.

Regarding the use-multiple-weapons Full Attack, that's another way to do excessive spike damage in a single turn no matter what kind of weapons you use. The restriction to "one per pilot level" becomes irrelevant to all classes around level 6 or so, because from then on you'll pretty much always be able to use as many weapons as you can hold. I recommend making that "one per four pilot levels" or "as many weapons as the number of attacks you could make in a regular full attack". Still a powerful option, but no longer objectively better than a regular Full Attack.

The reason I bring these things up is I exploit them all the time in our campaign and even I don’t think they’re fair. They turn into dominant strategies to the point where if you don’t use them, you’re crippling yourself.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on July 28, 2017, 12:53:30 PM
Now, courtesy of no other reason than my own total boredom, I've decided to see if I can build Getter Robo. Level 5 has been chosen because of how many other versions there are. Getter Emperor is, predictably, sitting somewhere beyond level 20 just based on the size requirements (3,700,000 MU means you need, approximately, another 15 size categories after colossal--so another 13 growth upgrades beyond level 20. Lol)

Amusingly, they would mechanically work better with 4 teammates, as then the temp upgrade points would let them take Great One only when combined and let me keep the base forms more similar. So, uncombined (not that they're supposed to be a fighting mecha like that, but I'll take what I can):

(click to show/hide)

(click to show/hide)

(click to show/hide)

Anyway, with all that out of the way, I want to know if I'm combining things right in the next step? Since it seems like additive upgrades stack, and same-weapons don't, so... unless different weapon upgrades count as different weapons...

(click to show/hide)

(click to show/hide)

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Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on July 28, 2017, 01:14:07 PM
For the Experimental Module, what exactly is the upgrade point limit? Does a material pay for 1 point or to each point of the same upgrade? Or even everything under that material's list?

Also the list needs updating, unless you don't want anything else available through it.
Experimental modules follows the same cap as super robots. A single special material will pay any number of upgrades on the respective category for a single mecha.

Added the new upgrades.

Honestly I'd be content with Supers exactly as they are now if damage across the system wasn’t so high. Around Arsenal IV I find that Super and Real defenses both start to fall behind relative to available weapon damage.

My single biggest issue with damage balance is Heavy weapon abuse. Under normal circumstances, they can be used only as a fullround action, but some maneuvers let you attack with a Heavy weapon as a standard (or even immediate!) action. Then there's the Alpha Strike type Full Attack, which lets you fire essentially all your weapons in one turn, including multiple Heavy weapons.

My suggested fix for that is to change the description of Heavy weapons to this (changes italicized):

Quote
This weapon takes a fullround action to use. It cannot make iteratives, but you can ready up an attack with an Heavy weapon as a fullround action. If any ability would allow you to full attack with a weapon after movement, then it can be used to perform one attack with this weapon. Any ability that would allow you to use a weapon and takes less than a fullround action requires a fullround action to use with a Heavy weapon. If you cannot perform a fullround action at the time you wish to use that maneuver or ability, you may not use a Heavy Weapon with it. A Heavy weapon may not be used as part of the type of Full Attack that uses more than one of the mecha's weapons, as it already requires a fullround action to use. Those weapons add twice Str/Dex modifier to damage rolls instead of just once. If a weapon has somehow the Heavy and Defensive properties simultaneously, then only the Heavy property applies.

This would mean you couldn’t use a Heavy weapon as part of a Counter off your turn. You couldn’t use something like Iron Blow to use a Heavy weapon and move in the same turn because it does not already require a fullround action to use, instead it would just let you fire the Heavy weapon without response. You would also no longer be able to avoid the "can't iterate a Heavy weapon attack" rule by just having multiple different Heavy weapons (or multiple copies of one) and doing a multi-weapon Full Attack.

Zooming in on the interaction between Heavy weapons and maneuvers that use weapons and take standard actions, here’s my view on them. Every maneuver has some benefit to the weapon you’re using. For example, Colossal Strike is a touch attack, doubles damage, and ignores DR - a great deal at 35EN. However, every single such maneuver has an unwritten additional benefit: “And if it’s a Heavy weapon, you can use it and still move that turn”. Taking a fullround action to use is the defining cost of Heavy weapons, so removing that is an incredible benefit.

Regarding the use-multiple-weapons Full Attack, that's another way to do excessive spike damage in a single turn no matter what kind of weapons you use. The restriction to "one per pilot level" becomes irrelevant to all classes around level 6 or so, because from then on you'll pretty much always be able to use as many weapons as you can hold. I recommend making that "one per four pilot levels" or "as many weapons as the number of attacks you could make in a regular full attack". Still a powerful option, but no longer objectively better than a regular Full Attack.

The reason I bring these things up is I exploit them all the time in our campaign and even I don’t think they’re fair. They turn into dominant strategies to the point where if you don’t use them, you’re crippling yourself.

Well the party in this forums haven't really done either in-play (and the Heavy in multiple weapon full attack was something I clarified as not working, point) but I can see the abuse potential, so added the extra Heavy clause as per your suggestion. As for the full attack part, reduced to 1+1/3 pilot level.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on July 28, 2017, 01:23:11 PM
I have no idea what these experimental modules you're talking about are. Or what's the deal with all the Accessories that have [Rev] next to them. Which thread is that in...?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Fzzr on July 28, 2017, 02:21:34 PM
Well the party in this forums haven't really done either in-play (and the Heavy in multiple weapon full attack was something I clarified as not working, point) but I can see the abuse potential, so added the extra Heavy clause as per your suggestion. As for the full attack part, reduced to 1+1/3 pilot level.

Thanks! :D

Now to find even more hilarious exploits! :smirk (It's just what I do)
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: YuweaCurtis on July 28, 2017, 02:22:39 PM
I have no idea what these experimental modules you're talking about are. Or what's the deal with all the Accessories that have [Rev] next to them. Which thread is that in...?

The former is in Support Staff, the later should be in Arsenal and if not the Introduction section.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on July 28, 2017, 02:39:59 PM
I have no idea what these experimental modules you're talking about are. Or what's the deal with all the Accessories that have [Rev] next to them. Which thread is that in...?

[Rev] accessories continuously replicate the effect of spells, and are incompatible with barriers. it's mentioned in the keywords both in the intro and the arsenal
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on July 28, 2017, 02:45:25 PM
I have no idea what these experimental modules you're talking about are. Or what's the deal with all the Accessories that have [Rev] next to them. Which thread is that in...?

[Rev] accessories continuously replicate the effect of spells, and are incompatible with barriers. it's mentioned in the keywords both in the intro and the arsenal

They weren't mentioned in the introduction, seems like that was missed when they were added. I was looking at that one, not the Arsenal keywords.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on July 28, 2017, 03:08:07 PM
Now, courtesy of no other reason than my own total boredom, I've decided to see if I can build Getter Robo. Level 5 has been chosen because of how many other versions there are. Getter Emperor is, predictably, sitting somewhere beyond level 20 just based on the size requirements (3,700,000 MU means you need, approximately, another 15 size categories after colossal--so another 13 growth upgrades beyond level 20. Lol)
Getter Emperor's components totally are ship captain/super. They no longer turn into jets, they turn into battleships carrying armies inside and the pilots stand at the bridge shouting orders.

So assuming one is an humongous battleship (colossal+5 extra sizes), the other two can each bring 5 growth upgrades for the total of +15 above colossal you want. And combining mecha also throws an extra free size upgrade.

On the other hand you'll need to pay 235 energy at the start and end of every turn plus an extra 2 energy per turn. How much energy regen can you pull at 20th level again? :P

(click to show/hide)

(click to show/hide)

(click to show/hide)

Anyway, with all that out of the way, I want to know if I'm combining things right in the next step? Since it seems like additive upgrades stack, and same-weapons don't, so... unless different weapon upgrades count as different weapons...

(click to show/hide)

(click to show/hide)

(click to show/hide)

I may make the pilot stats and add to the NPC list if you don't mind.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on July 28, 2017, 03:39:33 PM
Now, courtesy of no other reason than my own total boredom, I've decided to see if I can build Getter Robo. Level 5 has been chosen because of how many other versions there are. Getter Emperor is, predictably, sitting somewhere beyond level 20 just based on the size requirements (3,700,000 MU means you need, approximately, another 15 size categories after colossal--so another 13 growth upgrades beyond level 20. Lol)
Getter Emperor's components totally are ship captain/super. They no longer turn into jets, they turn into battleships carrying armies inside and the pilots stand at the bridge shouting orders.

So assuming one is an humongous battleship (colossal+5 extra sizes), the other two can each bring 5 growth upgrades for the total of +15 above colossal you want. And combining mecha also throws an extra free size upgrade.

On the other hand you'll need to pay 235 energy at the start and end of every turn plus an extra 2 energy per turn. How much energy regen can you pull at 20th level again? :P

I thought the way it worked was you would be +1 above the size of your biggest component? I didn't know Growth would get involved and stack like that.

Though whilst that might give you the size, it's a clearly poor way to emulate Getter Emperor. Just because that one is tied specifically to Ryoma, doesn't mean that the other two components get to be smaller. ;)

Quote
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(click to show/hide)

(click to show/hide)

Anyway, with all that out of the way, I want to know if I'm combining things right in the next step? Since it seems like additive upgrades stack, and same-weapons don't, so... unless different weapon upgrades count as different weapons...

(click to show/hide)

(click to show/hide)

(click to show/hide)

I may make the pilot stats and add to the NPC list if you don't mind.

By all means, go ahead. It's not like I did anything terrible novel or original, there.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Fzzr on July 28, 2017, 04:03:15 PM
I read over all the schools in this system (ignoring 2hu ones) and that Heavy weapon change fixed almost every previously unfair maneuver! There's only one egregious one left:

Quote
Squad Breaker
Into the Danger Zone (Boost)
Level: Any Pilot Class 6
Initiation Action: Standard action
Range:  See text
Target: See text
Duration: instantaneous
Save: none

When you initiate this maneuver, double your reach and perform two attacks against each oponents whitin reach with one melee weapon of your choice.

In alternative, fire a ranged weapon at a square twice. The shots explode in a burst with a radius equal to 10 x your pilot level in mu. Enemies caught inside the explosion must suceed on two reflex saves with DC equal to your attack rolls. For each failed save they take damage as if struck by your weapon.

This remains extremely powerful even with Heavy weapons turning it into a fullround. I think the fix is simple: just have it only make one shot if the weapon you use is Heavy. That would make it so that it still works as a mook crusher, but would no longer do enough damage to seriously threaten bosses.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on July 28, 2017, 04:25:05 PM
Also, the answer to "how much energy": with stacking levels of Battery for a combined mecha, and a current maximum reactor of III for Supers: 440/5. 88. So, you could merge Getter Emperor for a single turn (more, if EVERY pilot had Spiral Power or whatever it's called and burned all their spirit to do that).

EDIT: Wait, I tell a lie. 132 a turn (88 is for Reactor II). Therefore, for Getter Emperor to sustain itself independently, it needs Reactor VI.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Fzzr on July 28, 2017, 05:06:31 PM
Also, the answer to "how much energy": with stacking levels of Battery for a combined mecha, and a current maximum reactor of III for Supers: 440/5. 88. So, you could merge Getter Emperor for a single turn (more, if EVERY pilot had Spiral Power or whatever it's called and burned all their spirit to do that).

EDIT: Wait, I tell a lie. 132 a turn (88 is for Reactor II). Therefore, for Getter Emperor to sustain itself independently, it needs Reactor VI.
Remember that anything that grants energy to a combined robot gives 1/2 amount, including Reactor and items.

Edit: Energy regeneration, not capacity. For example, Propellant Pack, spirits that grant energy, Reactor, and Energy Taker would all provide half the usual amount of energy.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on July 28, 2017, 05:36:28 PM
Also, the answer to "how much energy": with stacking levels of Battery for a combined mecha, and a current maximum reactor of III for Supers: 440/5. 88. So, you could merge Getter Emperor for a single turn (more, if EVERY pilot had Spiral Power or whatever it's called and burned all their spirit to do that).

EDIT: Wait, I tell a lie. 132 a turn (88 is for Reactor II). Therefore, for Getter Emperor to sustain itself independently, it needs Reactor VI.
Remember that anything that grants energy to a combined robot gives 1/2 amount, including Reactor and items.

Edit: Energy regeneration, not capacity. For example, Propellant Pack, spirits that grant energy, Reactor, and Energy Taker would all provide half the usual amount of energy.

True, hmm. Therefore, you need Reactor XII--obviously beyond what you can get in 20 levels (or at all) but hey, Getter Emperor's not supposed to be something that's attainable. Infinite growth potential and all. Pretty much a cosmic horror. :p
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on July 29, 2017, 12:15:03 AM
Question on the terminology of some Super Robot upgrades.

Many upgrades uses terms that make slightly unclear whether they are meant to refer to the pilot himself, the super robot or both.
Quote
Tek Soul-Super Robot's main pilot maximum spirit points increases by 20 and they recover 4 extra spirit point per turn, but your HP is halved. You receive an extra +5 max spirit and 1 spirit regen if you're small, extra +10 max spirit and 2 spirit regen if you're tiny, extra +15 max spirit and 3 spirit regen if you're diminutive, extra +20 max spirit and 4 spirit regen if you're fine.
It is often used for the abilities that vary with size, in which case it seems meant to refer to the robot and not the pilot. But in the above example who/what does the HP halving affect?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on July 30, 2017, 04:48:51 AM
I read over all the schools in this system (ignoring 2hu ones) and that Heavy weapon change fixed almost every previously unfair maneuver! There's only one egregious one left:

Quote
Squad Breaker
Into the Danger Zone (Boost)
Level: Any Pilot Class 6
Initiation Action: Standard action
Range:  See text
Target: See text
Duration: instantaneous
Save: none

When you initiate this maneuver, double your reach and perform two attacks against each oponents whitin reach with one melee weapon of your choice.

In alternative, fire a ranged weapon at a square twice. The shots explode in a burst with a radius equal to 10 x your pilot level in mu. Enemies caught inside the explosion must suceed on two reflex saves with DC equal to your attack rolls. For each failed save they take damage as if struck by your weapon.

This remains extremely powerful even with Heavy weapons turning it into a fullround. I think the fix is simple: just have it only make one shot if the weapon you use is Heavy. That would make it so that it still works as a mook crusher, but would no longer do enough damage to seriously threaten bosses.

Changed.

Also, the answer to "how much energy": with stacking levels of Battery for a combined mecha, and a current maximum reactor of III for Supers: 440/5. 88. So, you could merge Getter Emperor for a single turn (more, if EVERY pilot had Spiral Power or whatever it's called and burned all their spirit to do that).

EDIT: Wait, I tell a lie. 132 a turn (88 is for Reactor II). Therefore, for Getter Emperor to sustain itself independently, it needs Reactor VI.
Remember that anything that grants energy to a combined robot gives 1/2 amount, including Reactor and items.

Edit: Energy regeneration, not capacity. For example, Propellant Pack, spirits that grant energy, Reactor, and Energy Taker would all provide half the usual amount of energy.

True, hmm. Therefore, you need Reactor XII--obviously beyond what you can get in 20 levels (or at all) but hey, Getter Emperor's not supposed to be something that's attainable. Infinite growth potential and all. Pretty much a cosmic horror. :p

Quite true in the manga version, in which the aliens indeed see Getter Emperor as a cosmic horror coming to destroy them all, curb-stomping all on its path.

Also kinda hard to design a full length campaign when the party can just literally crush planets in their super robot's hand. :P

Question on the terminology of some Super Robot upgrades.

Many upgrades uses terms that make slightly unclear whether they are meant to refer to the pilot himself, the super robot or both.
Quote
Tek Soul-Super Robot's main pilot maximum spirit points increases by 20 and they recover 4 extra spirit point per turn, but your HP is halved. You receive an extra +5 max spirit and 1 spirit regen if you're small, extra +10 max spirit and 2 spirit regen if you're tiny, extra +15 max spirit and 3 spirit regen if you're diminutive, extra +20 max spirit and 4 spirit regen if you're fine.
It is often used for the abilities that vary with size, in which case it seems meant to refer to the robot and not the pilot. But in the above example who/what does the HP halving affect?

Unless it specifically mentions the pilot,  it works with the super robot.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on July 30, 2017, 09:16:30 AM
Not just the aliens--the thing alternately terrifies and horrifies Ryoma (depending on whether it's the manga or one of the anime) in particular. And it's still shaping up to be the final boss... :lmao
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: YuweaCurtis on July 30, 2017, 12:34:40 PM
Are you going to make Psycho/ Prodigy feat equal to Real Divinity/ Super Arcanist?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on July 30, 2017, 05:19:46 PM
And done.

Not just the aliens--the thing alternately terrifies and horrifies Ryoma (depending on whether it's the manga or one of the anime) in particular. And it's still shaping up to be the final boss... :lmao
(http://imgur.com/uIlpEXn.png)

Future Musashi is a lot more enthusiastic about the whole thing. (https://i.somethingawful.com/forumsystem/emoticons/emot-catholic.gif)

Shame Getter Arc never got finished.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on July 30, 2017, 05:31:18 PM
Supporting the Getter or being dead? Tough choice.

I'm reminded that I was interested in the Einst. Still looks like an interesting class to play. I'm surprised there's not an Instinct to have them stick by their Queen without directly controlling them, though. And how the second two classifications are supposed to contribute much in a fight, given that hitting on mecha scale won't help with the difference between non-mecha and mecha AC/attack, and Nurturing has... no protection at all against mecha going for their weak point?

I mean, that's my real concern with the Einst Queen: they're pretty much normal characters, where only one of them has a means to not be taking massive damage, but you can't use Queen's Will without being present on the battlefield... and if you're there, it's an easy target.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on July 30, 2017, 06:34:26 PM
Supporting the Getter or being dead? Tough choice.
Someone's cosmic horror is somebody else's beloved god that rewards your faith with mass produced replacement clones eternal life. :P

I'm reminded that I was interested in the Einst. Still looks like an interesting class to play. I'm surprised there's not an Instinct to have them stick by their Queen without directly controlling them, though. And how the second two classifications are supposed to contribute much in a fight, given that hitting on mecha scale won't help with the difference between non-mecha and mecha AC/attack, and Nurturing has... no protection at all against mecha going for their weak point?

I mean, that's my real concern with the Einst Queen: they're pretty much normal characters, where only one of them has a means to not be taking massive damage, but you can't use Queen's Will without being present on the battlefield... and if you're there, it's an easy target.
Ah yes Einst Queen lagging behind.

Instinct for bodyguards would be kinda OP since there's no cap on how many you can produce total. Einst Queen is all about quantity over quality. Zerg rush your enemies and stuff. Queen's will is what you use when the enemy after the enemy is worn down/distracted by your first waves.

Gave Infiltrator Queen a bunch of bonus when working in mecha scale.
Nurturing Queen gets to sacrifice ongoing spells to save drone cores, plus she cannot be harmed while she still has an on ongoing spell and drones under Queen's Will.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Fzzr on July 30, 2017, 06:48:26 PM
I read over all the schools in this system (ignoring 2hu ones) and that Heavy weapon change fixed almost every previously unfair maneuver! There's only one egregious one left:

Quote
Squad Breaker
Into the Danger Zone (Boost)
Level: Any Pilot Class 6
Initiation Action: Standard action
Range:  See text
Target: See text
Duration: instantaneous
Save: none

When you initiate this maneuver, double your reach and perform two attacks against each oponents whitin reach with one melee weapon of your choice.

In alternative, fire a ranged weapon at a square twice. The shots explode in a burst with a radius equal to 10 x your pilot level in mu. Enemies caught inside the explosion must suceed on two reflex saves with DC equal to your attack rolls. For each failed save they take damage as if struck by your weapon.

This remains extremely powerful even with Heavy weapons turning it into a fullround. I think the fix is simple: just have it only make one shot if the weapon you use is Heavy. That would make it so that it still works as a mook crusher, but would no longer do enough damage to seriously threaten bosses.

Changed.

Yayz! Thanks for taking in all this feedback,.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on July 30, 2017, 06:56:33 PM
Excellent, now an Infiltrator Einst Queen no longer has to rely on just light armour when fighting mecha. Now to just hope for an opportunity to use that class in something. :lmao

Incidentally, that seems like the best class to replicate Nono from Diebuster if you have Android as the base race. Which is hilarious when you realise she was made specifically to fight against space monsters.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on July 31, 2017, 06:32:34 PM
On the new Wires. Questions so far:

They are defensive, which means that they can be used as an immediate action. They have a range increment of 90-mu, so 450-mu max range for what seems to be a thrown weapon (as most of the special weapons imply being). The base Wire Hook allows you to make the pull as part of the hit.
Which means that everyone can now travel up to 450-mu as an immediate action for 1 arsenal point and 5 energy.
Handy to get out of area of effects or the maximum range of an attack.

There is no duration to that connection but the fact that there are rules to keep it connected starting from the Arsenal II variant implies that it ends right after deciding whether or not to pull. How long does it last and if it persists, how to sever that connection? Any weight limits/carrying capacity if someone decides to pull a planet?

Once a wire connects to a target and the user keeps it up with energy every round, shouldn't there be a maximum range from which they can be from each-other if one never wants to get carried along?

For the offensive wires, should the user be able to prevent the target from following it for free when he moves?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on July 31, 2017, 06:52:30 PM
On the new Wires. Questions so far:

They are defensive, which means that they can be used as an immediate action. They have a range increment of 90-mu, so 450-mu max range for what seems to be a thrown weapon (as most of the special weapons imply being).
As much thrown as grenade launchers are. :P

The base Wire Hook allows you to make the pull as part of the hit.
Which means that everyone can now travel up to 450-mu as an immediate action for 1 arsenal point and 5 energy.
Handy to get out of area of effects or the maximum range of an attack.
Assuming you have something to attach the cable to and hit. :p

Anyway I now notice I completely forgot to also post the quick-and-dirty rules for pulling different types of stuff. :shakefist
 Also added extra energy cost depending on distance moved to limit movement spam.

There is no duration to that connection but the fact that there are rules to keep it connected starting from the Arsenal II variant implies that it ends right after deciding whether or not to pull. How long does it last and if it persists, how to sever that connection? Any weight limits/carrying capacity if someone decides to pull a planet?
The hook disconnects right after the pull, and there's now the rules for moving different weight categories around.

Once a wire connects to a target and the user keeps it up with energy every round, shouldn't there be a maximum range from which they can be from each-other if one never wants to get carried along?
It's the weapon's own maximum range, clarified.

For the offensive wires, should the user be able to prevent the target from following it for free when he moves?
Meh, it's already kinda too granular. If you don't want someone following you around, don't attach a cable to them in the first place.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on July 31, 2017, 07:00:28 PM
Thanks for the quick patch!

Quote
Assuming you have something to attach the cable to and hit.
There should most of the time be terrain that can be targeted. Walls, building, trees, surface of the planet.
Not as useful in space unless you cleverly prepare the terrain with a few barely noticeable pieces of junk that can be targeted to get pulled around.
Sky battles are more limited unless you move from ally to ally and such but as long as you're about 400-450 mu from the ground there is somewhere to quickly escape to.
New energy costs kills it though :)

Is there a way for a cabled target to free himself? Beyond moving 450-ft away from the target and hoping the user runs out of energy, I mean.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on July 31, 2017, 07:04:04 PM
Dropkick them when they reel you in.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on July 31, 2017, 07:05:52 PM
Disarm. Cables are still weapons.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on July 31, 2017, 07:10:17 PM
Not Sunder?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on July 31, 2017, 07:15:42 PM
Ah, sound. Seems to mean it can be disarmed anywhere within the wire's range and not necessarily while the 'hooker' is within the range of your own weapons, representing not necessarily the removal of the wire's attach to their mecha but also its attach to your own body, which should always be within range. Or plainly pulling and tearing it off the user's mecha.

Wire Claw(III) : Do you get to choose each round the cable is kept whether you use it to communicate or Trip/Grapple/Disarm/Bullrush or is it the same once you first use it?  Such as deciding to use it to trip and then not being able to use it for a disarm attempt next turn, having to trip again. My understanding is that it is meant to allow usage swaps each round.

Oh, when someone is moving for free (perhaps by force) after a wire user, or is being pulled, is that movement provoking AoO as normal?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on August 10, 2017, 08:24:01 PM
Not Sunder?

That would demand coming up with HP formulas and then there's energy beams and beam particle coatings so meh.

Ah, sound. Seems to mean it can be disarmed anywhere within the wire's range and not necessarily while the 'hooker' is within the range of your own weapons, representing not necessarily the removal of the wire's attach to their mecha but also its attach to your own body, which should always be within range. Or plainly pulling and tearing it off the user's mecha.
Normal disarm rules. Assume front hook super reinforced and really well attached and in blind spot. Also notice there's several ranged weapons with the Disarm property.

Wire Claw(III) : Do you get to choose each round the cable is kept whether you use it to communicate or Trip/Grapple/Disarm/Bullrush or is it the same once you first use it?  Such as deciding to use it to trip and then not being able to use it for a disarm attempt next turn, having to trip again. My understanding is that it is meant to allow usage swaps each round.
Correct, choose each turn.

Oh, when someone is moving for free (perhaps by force) after a wire user, or is being pulled, is that movement provoking AoO as normal?
Yes.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on August 11, 2017, 01:15:27 AM
On the new Wires. Questions so far:
I got one too.
Quote
Wire Negator(VI): As Wire Cable, but the target takes a -6 penalty to AC and attack rolls plus a -3 penalty on saves, PL, ML and CL while the cable remains attached.
Assuming PL=Pilot Level, if fired as a Super Robot is the Pilot supposed to lose 24 spirit too for the lost Pilot Levels? How does that the mech's base stats or upgrades?

Also seen you changed Real Arcanist. Cool. I presume you mean at least one level of Arcane Pilot and one of either Super or Real for the prerequisites? And is Psionic Trooper and Metal Mind the same Feat with a typo on PP? And are they supposed to be mutually exclusive (ie no x10/arcane1/divine1/psycho1 builds?).
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on August 11, 2017, 08:25:27 AM
^^^

Also, on Wire Negator, do the penalties stack? As in; pump someone full of that wire and he cannot do anything anymore, including disarming the wires since its attack modifier is down the drain. Except perhaps trying to move out of range.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on August 11, 2017, 08:24:03 PM
^^^

Also, on Wire Negator, do the penalties stack? As in; pump someone full of that wire and he cannot do anything anymore, including disarming the wires since its attack modifier is down the drain. Except perhaps trying to move out of range.

Effects from the same type of source never stack unless otherwise noticed.

On the new Wires. Questions so far:
I got one too.
Quote
Wire Negator(VI): As Wire Cable, but the target takes a -6 penalty to AC and attack rolls plus a -3 penalty on saves, PL, ML and CL while the cable remains attached.
Assuming PL=Pilot Level, if fired as a Super Robot is the Pilot supposed to lose 24 spirit too for the lost Pilot Levels? How does that the mech's base stats or upgrades?
Neither of those are based on pilot level, they're based on their respective class levels. Pilot Level is normally equal to class level for single classed characters, but reducing pilot level will not result in reducing class level.

Also seen you changed Real Arcanist. Cool. I presume you mean at least one level of Arcane Pilot and one of either Super or Real for the prerequisites? And is Psionic Trooper and Metal Mind the same Feat with a typo on PP? And are they supposed to be mutually exclusive (ie no x10/arcane1/divine1/psycho1 builds?).
You don't need caster pilot levels to take the feats but in that case the feats will do nothing.

Prodigy Pilot uses psywarrior progression and Psycho Pilot uses Wilder progression, thus their respective multiclass feats result in different pp gains.

You can stack them all if you're willing to spend all the feats and delay the progressions (as each caster/psionic class dip won't progress the others spellcasting/manifesting).
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on August 13, 2017, 10:39:36 AM
You can stack them all if you're willing to spend all the feats and delay the progressions (as each caster/psionic class dip won't progress the others spellcasting/manifesting).
Sooo..... Baha's ZERO is borked even after you skimmed through it. Used Super's Versatile on a Natural Weapon which in a new post is stated as not being a thing. Plus you just changed Hardpoints again so I have to restat almost the entire mech as strategically it's unable to perform the role it's set up for anymore.

I think now is a great time to flip things around to Mecha that doesn't get changed weekly. Permission to restat towards a more Real-Pilot based build?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on August 13, 2017, 08:24:19 PM
You can stack them all if you're willing to spend all the feats and delay the progressions (as each caster/psionic class dip won't progress the others spellcasting/manifesting).
Sooo..... Baha's ZERO is borked even after you skimmed through it. Used Super's Versatile on a Natural Weapon which in a new post is stated as not being a thing.

 Plus you just changed Hardpoints again so I have to restat almost the entire mech as strategically it's unable to perform the role it's set up for anymore.

I think now is a great time to flip things around to Mecha that doesn't get changed weekly. Permission to restat towards a more Real-Pilot based build?
It's been almost one month since supers aren't the most popular option for hardpoints anymore, but permission granted.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on August 13, 2017, 08:51:59 PM
Quote
Selling mechas and their weapons/acessories is a shady and risky business, only gaining 1/100th the crafting costs unless you're ahead of a pretty big and respectable corporation, in which case it's a full time job for life assuming you're not somebody else's cohort/follower/minion/similar.
This is where I point out that there are many abilities that hinge on loot conversion. If you want to absorb/convert a fortune for XYZ benefits, converting mechas into a different form of loot or into bonuses is a very lucrative way to go.

Quote
Arsenal acessories and weapons each cost 1/10th of a real of the same tier, except for Volatile weapons that cost 1/5th instead. Ammo costs are not included, cartridges must be acquired separately.
Oh, shouldn't Volatile weapons cost less than regular ones? As worded they cost twice the price of non-volatile weapons.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Fzzr on August 14, 2017, 03:31:11 AM
Acro Effect in Martial Machine says "Enemies that see you doing this must make a Will save when this maneuver is completed with DC 10+1/2+Str mod or they become Blinded for 1 round, except that they can still see you (and only you)."

I presume the 1/2 should be 1/2 HD?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on August 14, 2017, 10:35:27 AM
It's been almost one month since supers aren't the most popular option for hardpoints anymore, but permission granted.
ty, and I know about the hardpoint change. Doesn't seem like combat is around the corner so I procrastinated on it to see what else would change.

I suppose now Real Robots may get some changes soon too ;)
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on August 14, 2017, 07:56:42 PM
Quote
Selling mechas and their weapons/acessories is a shady and risky business, only gaining 1/100th the crafting costs unless you're ahead of a pretty big and respectable corporation, in which case it's a full time job for life assuming you're not somebody else's cohort/follower/minion/similar.
This is where I point out that there are many abilities that hinge on loot conversion. If you want to absorb/convert a fortune for XYZ benefits, converting mechas into a different form of loot or into bonuses is a very lucrative way to go.
Good point, added clause to prevent that.

Mind you, I don't think the party's managed to capture a single intact mecha, but better safe than sorry. :P

Quote
Arsenal acessories and weapons each cost 1/10th of a real of the same tier, except for Volatile weapons that cost 1/5th instead. Ammo costs are not included, cartridges must be acquired separately.
Oh, shouldn't Volatile weapons cost less than regular ones? As worded they cost twice the price of non-volatile weapons.
That's intended to make them less attractive options overall.

Acro Effect in Martial Machine says "Enemies that see you doing this must make a Will save when this maneuver is completed with DC 10+1/2+Str mod or they become Blinded for 1 round, except that they can still see you (and only you)."

I presume the 1/2 should be 1/2 HD?
Fixed, thanks.

Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on August 15, 2017, 12:28:52 AM
Quote
Mind you, I don't think the party's managed to capture a single intact mecha, but better safe than sorry. :P
For sure! Though the notion reminded me that you were conceptualizing a class that's all about finding new randomly generated mechas and swapping mechas as the fight goes. Capturing mechas is pretty tough when they all self-destruct.

Quote
That's intended to make them less attractive options overall.
Hm. I woulda thought that them being volatile would be demotivating enough, which is reflected in the lower arsenal value. Unless crafting them makes it not as penalizing somehow.
I don't mind, though. Just thought it was kinda odd that they were more expensive to make.

Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Fzzr on August 19, 2017, 04:07:46 AM
Love reads:
Quote
[Super Pilot](60):This replicates focus, strike, alert, valor and accel at the same time, except the Dodge bonus is only +4, the speed increase is only +15 feet/mu depending on scale.

However, none of the other spirits grant dodge bonus. Focus reads:
Quote
[Real Pilot](15):You gain +6 Insight bonus to attack rolls, AC and Reflex saves for 1 round.

This would make sense if Focus read like this instead:
Quote
[Real Pilot](15):You gain +6 Insight bonus to attack rolls, and a +6 Dodge bonus to AC and Reflex saves for 1 round.

And Love read like so:
Quote
[Super Pilot](60):This replicates focus, strike, alert, valor and accel at the same time, except the bonuses from Focus are only +4 and the speed increase is only +15 feet/mu depending on scale.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on August 19, 2017, 04:32:34 AM
Maybe Accel was meant to have a Dodge bonus?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Fzzr on August 19, 2017, 05:01:15 AM
Oh, that might make more sense. Was that edited some time in the past?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Fzzr on August 19, 2017, 01:20:11 PM
Some questions about Main Weapon, Zero Weapon, and mecha damage.

The basic rules read:
Quote
Mecha Ranged Weapons add the wielder's Dex mod to damage rolls. Ranged weapons with the Brutal property can add the wielder's Str mod to damage rolls instead. Mecha ranged weapons always provoke Aoos when firing while threatened.

...

Mecha Melee weapons add 1,5 the Str mod of the user if they don't use any other weapon for that round. If it is a [Main] weapon, 2x Str mod. If it's a Heavy melee weapon, 2,5 Str mod. If it is a Heavy [Main] melee weapon, 3x Str mod. The same thing with ranged weapons and Dex.

What does "the same thing with ranged weapons and Dex" mean? Does it mean that on top of the 1x Dex/Str to damage, Ranged weapons get an *extra* 1.5x etc. when used exclusively, or does it *replace* the normal 1x bonus?

Main Weapon reads:
Quote
It now deals damage as if it was one size category larger and adds 1.5 the relevant stat mod to damage instead of just once (if it is a heavy weapon, 2.5 the relevant stat)

In Main Weapon "1.5 the relevant stat mod to damage instead of just once" - what does that "instead" refer to? It seems like it's referring to the 1x Dex or Str mod that all ranged mecha weapons get at all times, but since it doesn't specify, it becomes ambiguous how it relates to melee weapons. This is especially confusing because the basic rules have different (higher) multipliers for the conditional bonus to melee main weapons. The way I understand these interactions, the Main Weapon text should read as follows (changes italicized):
Quote
Main Weapon: Choose one of your in built weapons. It now deals damage as if it was one size category larger. Ranged Main Weapons add 1.5x the relevant stat mod to damage instead of just 1x. Heavy Ranged Main Weapons add 2.5x the relevant stat mod. Melee Main Weapons add 2x the relevant stat mod when used exclusively instead of 1.5x. Heavy Melee Main Weapons add 3x the relevant stat mod when used exclusively instead of 2.5x. You can only have one Main Weapon, but you can pick this option two more times, each one increasing the damage die another size. The second one the Crit threat increases by 1 and the third the crit multiplier increases by 1.

I also noticed some disparities among the various classes of weapons I want to make sure are intentional.

Next question, Zero Weapon reads:
Quote
Zero Weapon-You must have Main Weapon to pick this. While you only attack with your main weapon, you gain +3 AC, Saves, DR, Trip, Disarm, Bullrush, Grapple. If you attack with any other weapon (or don't attack at all for 1 round), you lose those bonus until you spend a turn attacking with it and no other weapon.

Is this the exact same condition as that for getting the conditional bonus damage for using a melee mecha weapon exclusively? If so, I suggest changing the relevant lines in the basic rules to include that longer description of the condition, since it's more clear than the current version. Suggested text in basic rules:
Quote
Mecha Melee weapons add 1.5x the Str mod of the user if they don't use any other weapon for that round. If you attack with any other weapon (or don't attack at all for 1 round), you lose this bonus until you spend a turn attacking with it and no other weapon.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on August 19, 2017, 08:28:12 PM
Love reads:
Quote
[Super Pilot](60):This replicates focus, strike, alert, valor and accel at the same time, except the Dodge bonus is only +4, the speed increase is only +15 feet/mu depending on scale.

However, none of the other spirits grant dodge bonus. Focus reads:
Quote
[Real Pilot](15):You gain +6 Insight bonus to attack rolls, AC and Reflex saves for 1 round.

This would make sense if Focus read like this instead:
Quote
[Real Pilot](15):You gain +6 Insight bonus to attack rolls, and a +6 Dodge bonus to AC and Reflex saves for 1 round.

And Love read like so:
Quote
[Super Pilot](60):This replicates focus, strike, alert, valor and accel at the same time, except the bonuses from Focus are only +4 and the speed increase is only +15 feet/mu depending on scale.
Focus is working as intended, it's love that had a Typo, thanks.

Some questions about Main Weapon, Zero Weapon, and mecha damage.

The basic rules read:
Quote
Mecha Ranged Weapons add the wielder's Dex mod to damage rolls. Ranged weapons with the Brutal property can add the wielder's Str mod to damage rolls instead. Mecha ranged weapons always provoke Aoos when firing while threatened.

...

Mecha Melee weapons add 1,5 the Str mod of the user if they don't use any other weapon for that round. If it is a [Main] weapon, 2x Str mod. If it's a Heavy melee weapon, 2,5 Str mod. If it is a Heavy [Main] melee weapon, 3x Str mod. The same thing with ranged weapons and Dex.

What does "the same thing with ranged weapons and Dex" mean? Does it mean that on top of the 1x Dex/Str to damage, Ranged weapons get an *extra* 1.5x etc. when used exclusively, or does it *replace* the normal 1x bonus?
It means ranged weapons use Dex by default instead of Str.


Main Weapon reads:
Quote
It now deals damage as if it was one size category larger and adds 1.5 the relevant stat mod to damage instead of just once (if it is a heavy weapon, 2.5 the relevant stat)

In Main Weapon "1.5 the relevant stat mod to damage instead of just once" - what does that "instead" refer to? It seems like it's referring to the 1x Dex or Str mod that all ranged mecha weapons get at all times, but since it doesn't specify, it becomes ambiguous how it relates to melee weapons. This is especially confusing because the basic rules have different (higher) multipliers for the conditional bonus to melee main weapons. The way I understand these interactions, the Main Weapon text should read as follows (changes italicized):
Quote
Main Weapon: Choose one of your in built weapons. It now deals damage as if it was one size category larger. Ranged Main Weapons add 1.5x the relevant stat mod to damage instead of just 1x. Heavy Ranged Main Weapons add 2.5x the relevant stat mod. Melee Main Weapons add 2x the relevant stat mod when used exclusively instead of 1.5x. Heavy Melee Main Weapons add 3x the relevant stat mod when used exclusively instead of 2.5x. You can only have one Main Weapon, but you can pick this option two more times, each one increasing the damage die another size. The second one the Crit threat increases by 1 and the third the crit multiplier increases by 1.
It's the same formula for ranged and melee, simply ranged weapons use Dex where melee weapons would use Str.

I also noticed some disparities among the various classes of weapons I want to make sure are intentional.
  • Heavy Melee weapons get an extra 1x mod to their relevant damage bonuses, but Heavy Ranged weapons do not.
  • Ranged weapons get a constant damage bonus and a conditional one, but Melee weapons only get a conditional damage bonus.
  • Ranged weapons with Brutal are entitled to use Str mod for damage, but Melee weapons with Finesse are not entitled to use Dex mod.
-Same. Formula. Different. Stat.
-SAME! FORMULA! DIFFERENT! STAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!wHerE@ReyoUreAd!nGº+herWi$e? :psyduck
-Ranged weapons with brutal are still ranged and use Dex for damage since Brutal only changes the to-hit formula.

Next question, Zero Weapon reads:
Quote
Zero Weapon-You must have Main Weapon to pick this. While you only attack with your main weapon, you gain +3 AC, Saves, DR, Trip, Disarm, Bullrush, Grapple. If you attack with any other weapon (or don't attack at all for 1 round), you lose those bonus until you spend a turn attacking with it and no other weapon.

Is this the exact same condition as that for getting the conditional bonus damage for using a melee mecha weapon exclusively? If so, I suggest changing the relevant lines in the basic rules to include that longer description of the condition, since it's more clear than the current version. Suggested text in basic rules:
Quote
Mecha Melee weapons add 1.5x the Str mod of the user if they don't use any other weapon for that round. If you attack with any other weapon (or don't attack at all for 1 round), you lose this bonus until you spend a turn attacking with it and no other weapon.

If you elect to get the basic 1,5x stat bonus to damage, then you give up using any other weapons for the round, point.

Quote
Mind you, I don't think the party's managed to capture a single intact mecha, but better safe than sorry. :P
For sure! Though the notion reminded me that you were conceptualizing a class that's all about finding new randomly generated mechas and swapping mechas as the fight goes. Capturing mechas is pretty tough when they all self-destruct.
TTGL would've been awfully shorter if Lord Genome had bothered putting some failsafes in his mook machines.

Quote
That's intended to make them less attractive options overall.
Hm. I woulda thought that them being volatile would be demotivating enough, which is reflected in the lower arsenal value. Unless crafting them makes it not as penalizing somehow.
I don't mind, though. Just thought it was kinda odd that they were more expensive to make.

Volatile weapons are more supposed to be "fancy cutting-edge not properly tested tech" than "cut corners to get more output", thus more expensive. 
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on August 19, 2017, 10:10:53 PM
Hybrid reads
Quote
Hybrid: A Hybrid weapon has two statlines, which can be changed between as an Immediate action. An Hybrid weapon that runs on ammo on one side and runs out of ammo for it  Any bonus that affect a weapon benefit both versions of the Hybrid weapon if valid (so for example a melee only bonus would not affect a ranged version of an Hybrid weapon).
There appears to be some missing text after 'runs out of ammo for it'. I assume that should be 'can still be used in its other mode', but I'm not sure.


Also, thinking about it, Heavy melee weapons that don't have Area seem very very useless. If an enemy knows you have heavy melee, they can attack you, then move away. You'll never get to use your heavy melee, and they'll just keep hitting you. With Area, you can attack from a further range, which makes the increased damage actually useful. I dunno how you could change this to make 'em relevant, but I know that we've only been able to use 'em in our campaign with Area or with the (pre-nerf) maneuvers that let you use heavies as a standard action
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Fzzr on August 20, 2017, 03:12:14 AM
Okay, I figured out my misunderstanding. I was reading the sentence "Mecha Ranged Weapons add the wielder's Dex mod to damage rolls." as saying that they add 1x Dex mod, all the time. In my head this conflicted with two paragraphs later where the real numbers of 1.5x etc. are listed. Sleep deprivation is a hell of a drug.

Let me state my understandings as they are now, just so I can be sure my brain is in the right place.

Separately: RAW Zero Weapon lets you keep the bonuses if you attack with one weapon and use non-weapon attack maneuvers in the same round. Is this intended behavior? (I assume not)
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on August 20, 2017, 06:48:16 PM
Hybrid reads
Quote
Hybrid: A Hybrid weapon has two statlines, which can be changed between as an Immediate action. An Hybrid weapon that runs on ammo on one side and runs out of ammo for it  Any bonus that affect a weapon benefit both versions of the Hybrid weapon if valid (so for example a melee only bonus would not affect a ranged version of an Hybrid weapon).
There appears to be some missing text after 'runs out of ammo for it'. I assume that should be 'can still be used in its other mode', but I'm not sure.
Leftover, removed, thanks.

Also, thinking about it, Heavy melee weapons that don't have Area seem very very useless. If an enemy knows you have heavy melee, they can attack you, then move away. You'll never get to use your heavy melee, and they'll just keep hitting you. With Area, you can attack from a further range, which makes the increased damage actually useful. I dunno how you could change this to make 'em relevant, but I know that we've only been able to use 'em in our campaign with Area or with the (pre-nerf) maneuvers that let you use heavies as a standard action
The most simple way is having the Assault spirit to attack with them as a standard action. Martial Machine also has maneuvers to help with Heavy weapons. But otherwise yes Heavy melee are the most cumbersome weapons.

Okay, I figured out my misunderstanding. I was reading the sentence "Mecha Ranged Weapons add the wielder's Dex mod to damage rolls." as saying that they add 1x Dex mod, all the time. In my head this conflicted with two paragraphs later where the real numbers of 1.5x etc. are listed. Sleep deprivation is a hell of a drug.

Let me state my understandings as they are now, just so I can be sure my brain is in the right place.
  • A typical mecha weapon does [some damage] + X mod where X is Str for Melee and Dex for Ranged.
  • If the pilot commits to not using more than one weapon in a given round, they get a larger bonus instead - 1.5x for normal weapons, 2x for Main, 2.5x for Heavy, 3x for Main Heavy.
  • Zero Weapon grants a number of bonuses "while you only attack with your main weapon.... If you attack with any other weapon (or don't attack at all for 1 round), you lose those bonus until you spend a turn attacking with it and no other weapon." This is the exact same condition as item 2 - if you're getting the damage bonus increase for exclusive Main weapon use, you're also getting the other buffs from Zero Weapon.
  • A maneuver that makes an attack with a weapon counts as "using that weapon" for the purposes of items 2 and 3. Thus if your only attack in a round was to use Iron Blow, the weapon you used it with would gain the exclusive use bonus.
  • Any Brutal Ranged weapon may use Str for the damage bonus, but Finesse melee weapons my only use Dex for the damage bonus if the user has Weapon Finesse.
1-Yes.
2-Yes.
3-No, basically Zero Weapon allows you to switch to another weapon on the fly, but then you need 1 round of attacking only with the Zero weapon before you recover the benefits, whereas the basic 1,5 multiplier can be switched to another weapon at the start of each turn.
4-Yes.
5-No, again Brutal only applies for ranged to-hit rolls, not ranged damage rolls.

Separately: RAW Zero Weapon lets you keep the bonuses if you attack with one weapon and use non-weapon attack maneuvers in the same round. Is this intended behavior? (I assume not)
It is intended.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Fzzr on August 20, 2017, 07:24:58 PM
5. Any Brutal Ranged weapon may use Str for the damage bonus, but Finesse melee weapons my only use Dex for the damage bonus if the user has Weapon Finesse.
5-No, again Brutal only applies for ranged to-hit rolls, not ranged damage rolls.

Okay, I remain confused about this one then. The Basic Rules read:

Quote
Mecha Ranged Weapons add the wielder's Dex mod to damage rolls. Ranged weapons with the Brutal property can add the wielder's Str mod to damage rolls instead.

That seems to contradict your statement that Brutal only applies to to-hit. What am I reading wrong? I don't get it :(
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Fzzr on August 22, 2017, 04:03:37 AM
Spent some time reading through all the Super changes while auditing my character, came up with these questions:

King Frame reads:
Quote
You need pilot level 8 plus either Great One, Tek Knight, or Zero Pattern to pick this

Is this saying you can have only one of those three?

King Frame also reads:
Quote
Double the numeric effects of your previous choice, including any penalties, except for any extra effects based on size (or pilot level in the case of of Zero Pattern). So for example if your previous choice was Great One (Plating), you would gain +40 HP, +4 DR, +4 Natural armor regardless of size, and your Dodge bonus would be further halved, resulting in being quartered.

I'm not sure I understand the example you used with Great Plating. Is that saying that the first tier effect of Great Plating is doubled and then all the rest of the effects don't happen at all, or just that they happen at their normal rate? As another example, would the exclusive use buff of Zero Weapon be doubled to +6 and then never change, or be doubled and then grow at the normal +3 per 4 Super levels?

King Frame also reads:
Quote
You also gain +1 IL to initiating maneuvers

Does this have the same effect as increasing Pilot Level? (eg. longer range on Chest Blaster)
 
Ancient Sensor has this option:
Quote
Pick two options that can be active simultaneously.

RAW it seems like you can use that to get two options immediately. It should probably say "Pick two options you've already added that can be active simultaneously."

Zero Core reads:
Quote
Reduce the split penalty by 1, up to -1. You can pick this multiple times, stacking.

Edited:
This seems like it would have undefined behavior if you picked it more times than the amount of the penalty. A perverse mind might read it as causing the penalty to turn into a buff if you take it more times than the size of the penalty (so three or more normally, five or more with King Frame). It should probably read "You can pick this multiple times, stacking until the split penalty is 0."

Dynamic + Paired has the amusing effect of allowing you to pair a Melee weapon with a (potentially) Ranged weapon. Not that there's anything wrong with hitting someone and shooting them at the same time.

Could Dynamic mean that the Ranged weapons granted by Tank and Fighter modes can now be used as Melee weapons again? I had this scenario run through my head:
Quote
Super: I hit him with my cannon
DM: That provokes an attack of oppor-
Super: No, I hit him with the physical cannon. As a melee attack.
DM:  :twitch
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on August 26, 2017, 11:11:00 AM
I've been looking at Real robot options a bit and wondered how the Hybrid super upgrade applied to many of them. The new hybrid weapon attribute says something about what happens when running out of ammo on one side but doesn't finish the sentence.
Looking at some of the Real robot models' ranged weapons with limited ammo that could be converted to melee with the dynamic super upgrade (perhaps through a support staff), it may make actually be that melee attacks would still require ammo. Since some melee weapons still use energy after all and there is a precedent for melee weapons using ammo in the Revolver Stake/Revolving Bunker of the Alteisen/Riese. But since it speaks of running out of ammo on one side, it makes it unclear whether the other side has its own clip of ammo, if the ammo available gets split between both sides or if there is any other kind of arrangement.

Looking at the models, I notice that there are very few small Real robot models at the higher levels. You get two options at Robot V and that's it. I had brought the concept of the tethering cable in remembrance of the knightmares and am glad to see all the wires get in on the fun and with the knightmares getting into the SRW games maybe there is a spot for some of them as Reals?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Fzzr on August 26, 2017, 01:34:45 PM
Looking at the models, I notice that there are very few small Real robot models at the higher levels. You get two options at Robot V and that's it.

I think you missed the second post? http://minmaxforum.com/index.php?topic=7161.msg178254#msg178254
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on August 26, 2017, 01:36:54 PM
Considering the only two small mechas at robot V that I mentioned are there, what is it about it that I missed, exactly?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Fzzr on August 26, 2017, 01:41:22 PM
Oh, I somehow combined "small" and "few" in my head somehow. Carry on.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Fzzr on August 26, 2017, 01:41:31 PM
Woops double post
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on August 26, 2017, 04:49:59 PM
5. Any Brutal Ranged weapon may use Str for the damage bonus, but Finesse melee weapons my only use Dex for the damage bonus if the user has Weapon Finesse.
5-No, again Brutal only applies for ranged to-hit rolls, not ranged damage rolls.

Okay, I remain confused about this one then. The Basic Rules read:

Quote
Mecha Ranged Weapons add the wielder's Dex mod to damage rolls. Ranged weapons with the Brutal property can add the wielder's Str mod to damage rolls instead.

That seems to contradict your statement that Brutal only applies to to-hit. What am I reading wrong? I don't get it :(

My apologies, I completely forgot about that bit. Yes, Brutal allows you to use Str for damage in ranged attacks instead of Dex while you need Weapon Fineesse for the same effect for melee with Dex. That's because I value Dex higher than Str at the end of the day since Dex benefits (touch) AC, reflex saves, stealth skills and tumble, while Str benefits... Carrying capacity? Str/Trip and whatnot I guess, but you can go whole battles without that mattering.

Spent some time reading through all the Super changes while auditing my character, came up with these questions:

King Frame reads:
Quote
You need pilot level 8 plus either Great One, Tek Knight, or Zero Pattern to pick this

Is this saying you can have only one of those three?
Correct.

King Frame also reads:
Quote
Double the numeric effects of your previous choice, including any penalties, except for any extra effects based on size (or pilot level in the case of of Zero Pattern). So for example if your previous choice was Great One (Plating), you would gain +40 HP, +4 DR, +4 Natural armor regardless of size, and your Dodge bonus would be further halved, resulting in being quartered.

I'm not sure I understand the example you used with Great Plating. Is that saying that the first tier effect of Great Plating is doubled and then all the rest of the effects don't happen at all, or just that they happen at their normal rate? As another example, would the exclusive use buff of Zero Weapon be doubled to +6 and then never change, or be doubled and then grow at the normal +3 per 4 Super levels?
Base bonus be doubled and then grow at the normal rate.

King Frame also reads:
Quote
You also gain +1 IL to initiating maneuvers

Does this have the same effect as increasing Pilot Level? (eg. longer range on Chest Blaster)

Correct, clarified.

Ancient Sensor has this option:
Quote
Pick two options that can be active simultaneously.

RAW it seems like you can use that to get two options immediately. It should probably say "Pick two options you've already added that can be active simultaneously."
Done.

Zero Core reads:
Quote
Reduce the split penalty by 1, up to -1. You can pick this multiple times, stacking.

Edited:
This seems like it would have undefined behavior if you picked it more times than the amount of the penalty. A perverse mind might read it as causing the penalty to turn into a buff if you take it more times than the size of the penalty (so three or more normally, five or more with King Frame). It should probably read "You can pick this multiple times, stacking until the split penalty is 0."
That's already what the "up to -1" means, clarified.

Dynamic + Paired has the amusing effect of allowing you to pair a Melee weapon with a (potentially) Ranged weapon. Not that there's anything wrong with hitting someone and shooting them at the same time.


Could Dynamic mean that the Ranged weapons granted by Tank and Fighter modes can now be used as Melee weapons again? I had this scenario run through my head:
Quote
Super: I hit him with my cannon
DM: That provokes an attack of oppor-
Super: No, I hit him with the physical cannon. As a melee attack.
DM:  :twitch

Very much correct. :D

I've been looking at Real robot options a bit and wondered how the Hybrid super upgrade applied to many of them. The new hybrid weapon attribute says something about what happens when running out of ammo on one side but doesn't finish the sentence.
Looking at some of the Real robot models' ranged weapons with limited ammo that could be converted to melee with the dynamic super upgrade (perhaps through a support staff), it may make actually be that melee attacks would still require ammo. Since some melee weapons still use energy after all and there is a precedent for melee weapons using ammo in the Revolver Stake/Revolving Bunker of the Alteisen/Riese. But since it speaks of running out of ammo on one side, it makes it unclear whether the other side has its own clip of ammo, if the ammo available gets split between both sides or if there is any other kind of arrangement.
That was already pointed out and fixed days ago, are you keeping old tabs and not refreshing them? :psyduck

Looking at the models, I notice that there are very few small Real robot models at the higher levels. You get two options at Robot V and that's it. I had brought the concept of the tethering cable in remembrance of the knightmares and am glad to see all the wires get in on the fun and with the knightmares getting into the SRW games maybe there is a spot for some of them as Reals?

I only really stat in detail original units from the SRW games. But added a bunch of tiny sized generics since that seems to be about the size for knightmares when compared to gundams. Now only need a real's series for small sized.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Fzzr on August 27, 2017, 02:26:13 AM
Thanks for all the answers! Regarding the new generic reals, may I suggest an alternate name?

Quote
Knight Neutralizing Impulse Geas Hadronic Terror

I think it improves on the acronym :p

Regarding Small Reals, how about Arm Slaves? In the anime at least I think they're somewhere between Gundam and Knightmare Frame size.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on August 28, 2017, 08:22:00 PM
Neat!

Question on crafting; what reason would there be for crafting arsenal/hardpoint stuff?
Considering a mecha gets them automatically when selecting its arsenal gear and that they can only equip specific levels of arsenal equipment anyway.

Unless the crafter is not a pilot and doesn't have access to automatic arsenal refills, which may indeed be the case in a non-gestalt game where one side has to be full of pilot levels. Or where pilot levels are optional. Or doesn't have access to a friendly PC/NPC that can install arsenal options for free.

Also, just to be sure, when it says that a support staff can use an ability on a mecha within melee reach, does that include his own mecha? Such as to, say, use Fix It to repair his own busted volatile weapon.

I've been thinking about it for a long time but I'd also like to mention, before I use it, that maneuvers with huge base damage such as Flash Thousand would more or less obliterate any non-mecha target. Because mechas deal maximum base damage to non-mecha targets.

Reverse Tap (Gun Maniac): Since the melee attack gets all the properties of the twin-linked weapons, what would happen if they have the Area property? Is the melee attack against all adjacent targets done to every target passed by in a straight line up to twice the initiator's base speed? And are the targets within the first ranged increment of the twin-linked weapons those within that range before/after/throughout that movement?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Fzzr on August 29, 2017, 11:25:19 PM
I’ve also been thinking about Area Melee. I’ve been making extensive (ab)use of this feature, and I think it’s still too powerful. It currently acts as a Charge you can use as a standard action, which also attacks everything on the way at full BaB and damage, and which doesn’t require you to end the action in melee range of an opponent. To give an example of something from a recent session, a full attack with an Area Melee weapon (including Zero Reach and Haste) let me move over 300mu in a single turn, getting four kills despite starting over 100mu away from the first target. I still like the idea of movement that attacks enemies in the way, but I think it needs to be toned down somewhat.

The current description of melee weapons with Area is as follows:

Quote
If this appears in a melee weapon, you can move in a straight line up to twice your base speed, ignoring any opponents in your way for purposes of movement, without causing attacks of opportunity. Any buffs to speed increase the range after the base speed is multiplied. Roll to hit against all opponents you passed through. If your movement would cost EN or other resources, you must pay for it as normal. If an opponent is bigger than you, you need to pass through the middle of their position to affect them with this.

This is my suggested text:

Quote
If a melee weapon has the Area feature, as a fullround action, you can move in a straight line up to twice your base speed toward an enemy. If the weapon is a Heavy weapon, move only up to your base speed. Ignore any opponents in your way for purposes of movement, and this movement does not provoke attacks of opportunity. Any buffs to speed increase the range after the base speed is multiplied. Your movement must end adjacent to the final target of your attack without passing through them.

Roll to hit with that weapon against all opponents you passed through, plus the target at the end. If you pass through an opponent bigger than you with this movement, the line needs to pass through the middle of their position for you hit them with this attack. You deal 50% damage to all enemies you hit with this attack, except the final target who takes full damage. You may not make any other movements in a round in which you use a melee weapon in Area mode, including a 5mu step. Movement made as part of an Area Melee attack costs an additional 1 energy per 5mu moved on top of any other normal cost.

Any ability that allows you to make more than one attack in a round with a melee weapon may not be used with Area mode, even if the ability also requires a fullround action.

(I added that last line based on Anomander's question, since it's a potential source of abuse.)

With or without the above change, I suggest Area be broken away from Versatile in Super Robot upgrades and turned into its own upgrade, costing two points. The other effects in Versatile do some non-damage effect to the enemy. Area lets you do (potentially) more damage with an attack, making it more similar to Progressive Edge, which adds Rending for two points.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on August 30, 2017, 03:20:34 AM
Quote
Your movement must end adjacent to the final target of your attack without passing through them.
I'll note that this part can be played around since one can well target an empty space. Not necessarily because of potential invisible enemies. (although in your version it would mean that all targets take half damage).

Your version misses an application per attack, as per the ranged version.

Although...
Quote
Area Melee weapon (including Zero Reach and Haste) let me move over 300mu in a single turn, getting four kills despite starting over 100mu away from the first target.
Might be worth mentioning that if a single fullattack was enough to take out 4 targets within 300-mu that were positioned in such a way that you could attack each of them more than once by moving in one straight line per attack, then the target positioning made it possible. Which is pretty tough to accomplish with airborne enemies. Unless they gently align themselves for you or you have an immense occupied space so as to pass over them more easily, you'd normally only get about 2 targets per attack. With a similarly advantageous positioning of the enemies, a ranged area weapon you'd have just as optimized for greater range could probably have taken them out with a regular fullattack just as well. Especially if a single fullattack was enough to take out any single one of them.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Fzzr on August 30, 2017, 05:38:49 AM
Quote
Your movement must end adjacent to the final target of your attack without passing through them.
I'll note that this part can be played around since one can well target an empty space. Not necessarily because of potential invisible enemies. (although in your version it would mean that all targets take half damage).
I see what you mean. Charge requires attacking something in your line of sight, but this is not quite that.

Your version misses an application per attack, as per the ranged version.
I don't understand. Please explain further. Suggested text is fine.

Although...
Quote
Area Melee weapon (including Zero Reach and Haste) let me move over 300mu in a single turn, getting four kills despite starting over 100mu away from the first target.
Might be worth mentioning that if a single fullattack was enough to take out 4 targets within 300-mu that were positioned in such a way that you could attack each of them more than once by moving in one straight line per attack, then the target positioning made it possible. Which is pretty tough to accomplish with airborne enemies. Unless they gently align themselves for you or you have an immense occupied space so as to pass over them more easily, you'd normally only get about 2 targets per attack. With a similarly advantageous positioning of the enemies, a ranged area weapon you'd have just as optimized for greater range could probably have taken them out with a regular fullattack just as well. Especially if a single fullattack was enough to take out any single one of them.
No, this was a different movement with each attack, only one of the attacks hit more than one target. Four targets, three movements. The fact that they were kills was just that they were all damaged or squishy, but being able to attack four units at full BaB across a wider range than most ranged weapons could accomplish the feat is nuts. With haste, Zero Reach, and a Super Robot at Agility 2, the targets would have had to be more than 160mu apart to avoid this being possible (though using that range to the max would pretty much completely drain my energy reserves).

I may have gone too far in the nerf, now I compare to the ranged version again. Maybe drop the movement reduction on Heavy (since ranged gets a bonus there) and the damage reduction? The main thing that makes it subject to abuse is the extra movements in a single turn with a full attack. Alternative, much simpler change:

Quote
If this appears in a melee weapon, you can move in a straight line up to twice your base speed, ignoring any opponents in your way for purposes of movement, without causing attacks of opportunity. If you are making this movement as part of a full attack, or ability that allows you to make more than one attack in a row, only the first attack may include movement granted by Area. Any buffs to speed increase the range after the base speed is multiplied. Roll to hit against all opponents you passed through. If your movement would cost EN or other resources, you must pay for it as normal. If an opponent is bigger than you, you need to pass through the middle of their position to affect them with this.

Any ability that allows you to make more than one attack at the same time with a melee weapon may not be used with Area mode.

Edited to fix misuse of quote tag.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on August 30, 2017, 09:31:02 AM
Quote
Quote
Your version misses an application per attack, as per the ranged version.
I don't understand. Please explain further. Suggested text is fine.
I meant that your version required a fullround action to use. There is no option per attack, as ranged weapons do. If one is to be limited to a single attack anyway, might as well go Heavy weapon despite movement limitation.

Quote
No, this was a different movement with each attack, only one of the attacks hit more than one target.
I already had understood that there had been one movement per attack. I implied that if your use of Area with melee weapons had been so good, it would have had to manage multiple target hits just about every attack. Otherwise it can be compared to simple ranged attacks, trading the attack penalty for having to find angles to hit multiple people and spending energy to move if any of them are airborne.


As for the new version, it suffers compared to the ranged version only in that only the first attack has the actual Area effect. One way to have all the attacks get the Area advantage without the multiple movements you dread, while still keeping close to what ranged Area weapons get, would be to have all the attacks of a multiple hits ability/fullattack affect only the targets within the straight line of the first movement.
For example, a fullattack would work as normal, except all hits would be done to the valid targets of the initial movement. The first hit targeting them all, then the second at -5 to hit targeting them all as well, and so on.
If someone makes a single attack as a standard, he could still move before or after.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on August 30, 2017, 02:39:40 PM
Thanks for all the answers! Regarding the new generic reals, may I suggest an alternate name?

Quote
Knight Neutralizing Impulse Geas Hadronic Terror

I think it improves on the acronym :p

Regarding Small Reals, how about Arm Slaves? In the anime at least I think they're somewhere between Gundam and Knightmare Frame size.
Done both.

Neat!

Question on crafting; what reason would there be for crafting arsenal/hardpoint stuff?
Considering a mecha gets them automatically when selecting its arsenal gear and that they can only equip specific levels of arsenal equipment anyway.

Unless the crafter is not a pilot and doesn't have access to automatic arsenal refills, which may indeed be the case in a non-gestalt game where one side has to be full of pilot levels. Or where pilot levels are optional. Or doesn't have access to a friendly PC/NPC that can install arsenal options for free.
Reasons to use the craft skill to build mechas: (http://minmaxforum.com/index.php?topic=17945.0)
-You have no pilot class.
-Your want extra mechas besides the ones your class and friends can get you.
-You're a super and want better arsenal.


Also, just to be sure, when it says that a support staff can use an ability on a mecha within melee reach, does that include his own mecha? Such as to, say, use Fix It to repair his own busted volatile weapon.
Yes.

I've been thinking about it for a long time but I'd also like to mention, before I use it, that maneuvers with huge base damage such as Flash Thousand would more or less obliterate any non-mecha target. Because mechas deal maximum base damage to non-mecha targets.
Hmmm, I think the maximized bit against non-mecha is a bit too much, removed.

Reverse Tap (Gun Maniac): Since the melee attack gets all the properties of the twin-linked weapons, what would happen if they have the Area property? Is the melee attack against all adjacent targets done to every target passed by in a straight line up to twice the initiator's base speed? And are the targets within the first ranged increment of the twin-linked weapons those within that range before/after/throughout that movement?
Yes, only targets you passed through, follow the order of actions to find out.

I’ve also been thinking about Area Melee. I’ve been making extensive (ab)use of this feature, and I think it’s still too powerful. It currently acts as a Charge you can use as a standard action, which also attacks everything on the way at full BaB and damage, and which doesn’t require you to end the action in melee range of an opponent. To give an example of something from a recent session, a full attack with an Area Melee weapon (including Zero Reach and Haste) let me move over 300mu in a single turn, getting four kills despite starting over 100mu away from the first target. I still like the idea of movement that attacks enemies in the way, but I think it needs to be toned down somewhat.

The current description of melee weapons with Area is as follows:

Quote
If this appears in a melee weapon, you can move in a straight line up to twice your base speed, ignoring any opponents in your way for purposes of movement, without causing attacks of opportunity. Any buffs to speed increase the range after the base speed is multiplied. Roll to hit against all opponents you passed through. If your movement would cost EN or other resources, you must pay for it as normal. If an opponent is bigger than you, you need to pass through the middle of their position to affect them with this.

This is my suggested text:

Quote
If a melee weapon has the Area feature, as a fullround action, you can move in a straight line up to twice your base speed toward an enemy. If the weapon is a Heavy weapon, move only up to your base speed. Ignore any opponents in your way for purposes of movement, and this movement does not provoke attacks of opportunity. Any buffs to speed increase the range after the base speed is multiplied. Your movement must end adjacent to the final target of your attack without passing through them.

Roll to hit with that weapon against all opponents you passed through, plus the target at the end. If you pass through an opponent bigger than you with this movement, the line needs to pass through the middle of their position for you hit them with this attack. You deal 50% damage to all enemies you hit with this attack, except the final target who takes full damage. You may not make any other movements in a round in which you use a melee weapon in Area mode, including a 5mu step. Movement made as part of an Area Melee attack costs an additional 1 energy per 5mu moved on top of any other normal cost.

Any ability that allows you to make more than one attack in a round with a melee weapon may not be used with Area mode, even if the ability also requires a fullround action.

(I added that last line based on Anomander's question, since it's a potential source of abuse.)

With or without the above change, I suggest Area be broken away from Versatile in Super Robot upgrades and turned into its own upgrade, costing two points. The other effects in Versatile do some non-damage effect to the enemy. Area lets you do (potentially) more damage with an attack, making it more similar to Progressive Edge, which adds Rending for two points.


I believe a more simple solution is reducing how much you can move per attack. Changed it to half movement speed, or normal movement speed with Zero reach.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Fzzr on August 30, 2017, 06:42:31 PM
Great! Unrelated minor question:

Disarming reads:
Quote
Disarming: If you deal damage with this weapon, you can attempt a Disarm as a free action on the target without provoking attacks of opportunity nor needing to make a new attack roll, even if at range. However you cannot try to pick up the weapon of your enemy if you succeed and have a free hand. A Heavy weapon grants a +6 bonus on the Disarm roll.

Since the Disarm attempt provided by Disarming does not require a new attack roll, does that mean Strike guarantees a successful disarm?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on August 31, 2017, 12:01:39 AM
Sound changes.

Quote
-You're a super and want better arsenal.
Oh? I'd have though that the limit of the mecha itself would have prevented access to something beyond its max arsenal level. As in, sure, you can build it but that doesn't mean your mecha can actually equip it. Though perhaps that limit was only meant for arsenal options acquired off the class ability.
Getting up to rank VII accessories/weapons early for your super robot is an excellent deal. Not all that expensive either even though it takes a hardpoint/arsenal to equip.
Ah, it mentions building/costs for arsenal accessories but there isn't a craft skill for those.

Quote
Since the Disarm attempt provided by Disarming does not require a new attack roll, does that mean Strike guarantees a successful disarm?
I may be wrong but normally that would not be so. Since Strike only makes it so that you auto hit. Disarming is not about hitting or not hitting but winning an opposed  check. So you hit the target, and the disarm attempt is done but not necessarily won.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Fzzr on August 31, 2017, 02:28:34 PM
I've already given up on Arsenal as a Super because the lack of Ammo Melee makes X-linking and full attacks with Arsenal Melee weapons unsustainable, significantly reducing options. There are a few Brutal Ammo Ranged but they tend to be Heavy or extremely inferior to Super Builtin options. Overall I'm doubling down on maneuvers crossed over with Zero Weapon, Special Attack, Favored Maneuver, and Attacker/Predict. I keep a low-arsenal-space Defensive weapon on hand to maintain Attacker/Predict with multiple enemies as I go. Strike for early on when the buffs aren't stacked so it's hard to hit reals, Yell to get buffs early. Love or Battle Cry for important attacks. We'll see over the next level or so how that keeps up with the real-based party members.

One hilarious thing I thought of is the Steel Knife* Stack. Take as many X-linked Steel Knives as possible. Stack damage buffs. Since damage buffs are per attack and X-linked weapons each make individual attacks, all damage buffs are multiplied by your Arsenal level - 1 (including things like the bonus from str mod). At Attacker 1 at level 13, that's already a total buff of 36 damage. The downside is each one has to overcome DR on its own, but that's a LOT of chances to get 20s. (I'm not actually at 13 yet, just thinking ahead to possible hilarity). At arsenal VI at level 19, each level of Attacker alone gains you 75 damage, allowing you to potentially deal more average damage than some Arsenal VII Heavy weapons when using a maneuver that overcomes DR, like Colossal Strike.

The easy way to patch this, if you want to, is to say that when using Twin- and X-linked weapons any damage buffs and other damage bonuses are distributed evenly over all the attacks (or in some other way impaired).

* This also works with Assault Blade, but that's not Defensive. Going from Xd8 to Xd10 isn't worth it, and I prefer the wider crit range of Steel Knife to the higher multiplier of Assault Blade, especially when combined with Battle Cry or similar.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on August 31, 2017, 07:21:34 PM
Your strategy is similar to what I had in mind myself.

Quote
Take as many X-linked Steel Knives as possible
Why take so many? You don't get more attacks for selecting it more than once.
Get it once and you instantly get X amount of that weapon linked together. If you make a X-link-compatible attack to have them all strike together, only a single set can be used.

Something on a similar note that may be worth mentioning is that although twin/X-linked weapons with ammo technically attack like a single weapon since they each have their own clip of ammo, the same isn't true of weapons requiring energy.
In the case of ammo-based weapons, for example, if one was to get his twin-linked gun disarmed or volatile'd, you lose one of the two and still got the other one to fight with, albeit without its twin. So if you shoot once with it and then recover the lost weapon, both weapons aren't at the same amount of ammo.
But if you use a twin-linked weapon that requires 5 EN per shot, you need 10 EN to shoot it since you just fired two of that weapon. Not sure if that was intended.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on August 31, 2017, 10:25:50 PM
Something on a similar note that may be worth mentioning is that although twin/X-linked weapons with ammo technically attack like a single weapon since they each have their own clip of ammo, the same isn't true of weapons requiring energy.
In the case of ammo-based weapons, for example, if one was to get his twin-linked gun disarmed or volatile'd, you lose one of the two and still got the other one to fight with, albeit without its twin. So if you shoot once with it and then recover the lost weapon, both weapons aren't at the same amount of ammo.
But if you use a twin-linked weapon that requires 5 EN per shot, you need 10 EN to shoot it since you just fired two of that weapon. Not sure if that was intended.

I've asked this question before. It's intentional.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Fzzr on August 31, 2017, 10:29:48 PM
Your strategy is similar to what I had in mind myself.

Quote
Take as many X-linked Steel Knives as possible
Why take so many? You don't get more attacks for selecting it more than once.
Get it once and you instantly get X amount of that weapon linked together. If you make a X-link-compatible attack to have them all strike together, only a single set can be used.
Yah, that's what I meant. Just max out the X-linkage (not that there's ever any reason not to).

Something on a similar note that may be worth mentioning is that although twin/X-linked weapons with ammo technically attack like a single weapon since they each have their own clip of ammo, the same isn't true of weapons requiring energy.
In the case of ammo-based weapons, for example, if one was to get his twin-linked gun disarmed or volatile'd, you lose one of the two and still got the other one to fight with, albeit without its twin. So if you shoot once with it and then recover the lost weapon, both weapons aren't at the same amount of ammo.
But if you use a twin-linked weapon that requires 5 EN per shot, you need 10 EN to shoot it since you just fired two of that weapon. Not sure if that was intended.
I remember this came up a while ago and oslecamo said that it's working as intended. That's why I went with steel knives - no energy cost. Doing this even with just Plasma Swords instead makes the whole thing much less valuable since you have to pay for each attack by each linked weapon.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on September 01, 2017, 12:54:39 AM
Why take so many? You don't get more attacks for selecting it more than once.
I brought this up ages ago which lead to a series of nerfs that notably included a cap on the amount of weapons you can use (which none, then limit to hd, now 1/3 of hd). But yes, there is a reason for taking a weapon more than once.
Quote
When full attacking, a mecha may choose to either perform iteratives with a single weapon or attack once with any or all of its in-built and arsenal weapons, up to a total of weapons equal to 1+1/3 their pilot level, rounded down. In the latter case, all weapons after the first take a -5 penalty on the attack roll, only add half the relevant stat to damage, and cannot benefit from any precision damage.

Damage really isn't a problem through. Like even if you boil things down to clear choices, a lv14 Super with a Field Lance @20 Str, they can still use Colossal Strike while in the Way of the Sword Stance. They get an extra +12 to Attack rolls, it's a Touch Attack too, and it ignores all Miss Chances so obviously it hits. It deals 24d12+68 (224 avg) and ignores DR. Your typical Super has more HP than a Real and they only have 225 assuming they took Plating eight times so you can generally destroy all but the tankist of mechs in one attack with at level simple choices and subpar ability scores. Plus once they learn they can use Spirit, using Fury will counter people trying to use stuff like Alert/Defend/Invincibility to survive.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on September 01, 2017, 09:05:56 AM
I had considered that point but it doesn't help all that much since even if you make an alternate full attack, each set of X-linked weapon isn't striking as one weapon. They do so separately.
A level 10 real with access to arsenal IV can only do 4 attacks with an alt full-attack. If he uses 4-Linked steel knives for it, he'll use the four steel knives of the x-linked set, dealing 4 attacks. There isn't much of an advantage to it unless it is the only affordable means of getting a hold of 4 weapons.

Oh, to be clear, the reasoning behind this statement is that even though twin-linked says it works on a fullattack and that alternate fullattacks are still fullattacks, it doesn't change that the alternate fullattack has a cap on the amount of weapons used. Despite twin-linked allowing the weapons of a set to attack together whenever one would attack, it doesn't change that each identical weapon is a separate weapon, which falls under the restriction.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on September 01, 2017, 11:16:44 AM
Fun facts for today:
-A level 14 super pilot with 20 Str using way of the sword with colossal strike would deal  2x(12d12+10 (str mod doubled)+14(stance))=24d12+48, which averages to 204 damage.
-Fury does not bypass Alert just as it does not bypass miss chances or any other effect that simply prevents you from hitting somebody.

Great! Unrelated minor question:

Disarming reads:
Quote
Disarming: If you deal damage with this weapon, you can attempt a Disarm as a free action on the target without provoking attacks of opportunity nor needing to make a new attack roll, even if at range. However you cannot try to pick up the weapon of your enemy if you succeed and have a free hand. A Heavy weapon grants a +6 bonus on the Disarm roll.

Since the Disarm attempt provided by Disarming does not require a new attack roll, does that mean Strike guarantees a successful disarm?
As Anomander said, the disarm itself is not an attack roll.

Sound changes.

Quote
-You're a super and want better arsenal.
Oh? I'd have though that the limit of the mecha itself would have prevented access to something beyond its max arsenal level. As in, sure, you can build it but that doesn't mean your mecha can actually equip it. Though perhaps that limit was only meant for arsenal options acquired off the class ability.
Getting up to rank VII accessories/weapons early for your super robot is an excellent deal. Not all that expensive either even though it takes a hardpoint/arsenal to equip.
Ah, it mentions building/costs for arsenal accessories but there isn't a craft skill for those.

Fixed. And on second thought, explicitly locked equiping arsenal stuff to what a normal pilot would normally be able to.

I've already given up on Arsenal as a Super because the lack of Ammo Melee makes X-linking and full attacks with Arsenal Melee weapons unsustainable, significantly reducing options. There are a few Brutal Ammo Ranged but they tend to be Heavy or extremely inferior to Super Builtin options. Overall I'm doubling down on maneuvers crossed over with Zero Weapon, Special Attack, Favored Maneuver, and Attacker/Predict. I keep a low-arsenal-space Defensive weapon on hand to maintain Attacker/Predict with multiple enemies as I go. Strike for early on when the buffs aren't stacked so it's hard to hit reals, Yell to get buffs early. Love or Battle Cry for important attacks. We'll see over the next level or so how that keeps up with the real-based party members.
I still find it ironic that you count anything's that not a pure super as a real, even if they have zero levels of real pilot and don't use a single real robot.

One hilarious thing I thought of is the Steel Knife* Stack. Take as many X-linked Steel Knives as possible. Stack damage buffs. Since damage buffs are per attack and X-linked weapons each make individual attacks, all damage buffs are multiplied by your Arsenal level - 1 (including things like the bonus from str mod). At Attacker 1 at level 13, that's already a total buff of 36 damage. The downside is each one has to overcome DR on its own, but that's a LOT of chances to get 20s. (I'm not actually at 13 yet, just thinking ahead to possible hilarity). At arsenal VI at level 19, each level of Attacker alone gains you 75 damage, allowing you to potentially deal more average damage than some Arsenal VII Heavy weapons when using a maneuver that overcomes DR, like Colossal Strike.

The easy way to patch this, if you want to, is to say that when using Twin- and X-linked weapons any damage buffs and other damage bonuses are distributed evenly over all the attacks (or in some other way impaired).

* This also works with Assault Blade, but that's not Defensive. Going from Xd8 to Xd10 isn't worth it, and I prefer the wider crit range of Steel Knife to the higher multiplier of Assault Blade, especially when combined with Battle Cry or similar.
I don't see how effects like Colossal Strike would work. It says to make one attack with one weapon, and x-linked doesn't say anything about rewriting maneuvers to your whims.

Thus the basic penalty of the steel knife having neither power or rending remains, so the buff multiplication is pretty much the only reason to take x-linked anything. Even then with the multi-attack rules you're better off taking a bunch of highter tier weapons unless you're really short on arsenal space.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on September 01, 2017, 01:46:47 PM
Fun facts for today:
I suppose you're semi-right, Alert isn't exactly a Miss Chance (which btw is ignored from the stance, not the spirit), but that's ok since instead of using Anger for extra damage they can just use Swat to attack as a Swift Action first.



Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on September 01, 2017, 05:56:12 PM
I still find it ironic that you count anything's that not a pure super as a real, even if they have zero levels of real pilot and don't use a single real robot.

To be fair, Moon Vanguard replicates class levels, and I'm maxing real levels (to the latest available arsenal grade, because non grade up levels are dead in real, to a moon vanguard). I'm currently using a grade IV generic real robot.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on September 02, 2017, 05:41:18 AM
I still find it ironic that you count anything's that not a pure super as a real, even if they have zero levels of real pilot and don't use a single real robot.

To be fair, Moon Vanguard replicates class levels, and I'm maxing real levels (to the latest available arsenal grade, because non grade up levels are dead in real, to a moon vanguard). I'm currently using a grade IV generic real robot.

This reminds me, how do you deal with the bit where the Moon Vanguard only gets to be mecha-scale a few turns per day?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on September 02, 2017, 10:46:30 AM
I still find it ironic that you count anything's that not a pure super as a real, even if they have zero levels of real pilot and don't use a single real robot.

To be fair, Moon Vanguard replicates class levels, and I'm maxing real levels (to the latest available arsenal grade, because non grade up levels are dead in real, to a moon vanguard). I'm currently using a grade IV generic real robot.

This reminds me, how do you deal with the bit where the Moon Vanguard only gets to be mecha-scale a few turns per day?
By using Squad Breaker to instantly kill any enemies we run into. Also, I have about 30 turns per day of mecha scale (3 overdrives, +9 stat mod), which is more than enough.

On the topic of Squad Breaker, as someone who abuses it a ton, I would personally recommend its blast radius getting quartered (to one square/two pilot levels). This would make it so that you  couldn't hit every enemy in an encounter with a single shot. This would also put it a lot more in line with the blasts of ranged MAP attacks in SRW games
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on September 02, 2017, 11:22:13 AM
You know, there's a reason why in the SRW games enemies often come in waves, to wear down your buffs and also avoid they being all focused by area effects in one go.

Anyway nerfed the area as suggested, I agree it was a tad too big.

Also out of curiosity, what do you use for map/positioning, in particular 3D movement?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on September 02, 2017, 05:00:53 PM
You know, there's a reason why in the SRW games enemies often come in waves, to wear down your buffs and also avoid they being all focused by area effects in one go.

Anyway nerfed the area as suggested, I agree it was a tad too big.

Also out of curiosity, what do you use for map/positioning, in particular 3D movement?

We're using Roll20 for the map. verticality is generally done as per SRW (2D plane, you can be flying if you want) because it's a pain to keep track of 3d movement
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Fzzr on September 03, 2017, 03:05:03 AM
Thanks for the great fixes. Also good to know on the X-linked thing. I wasn't actually intending to do it (while robot shows are often silly, it wouldn't fit the tone of my character to become a tornado of knives) but it's good to know that it won't work in case I got tempted.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on September 04, 2017, 08:06:55 PM
We're using Roll20 for the map. verticality is generally done as per SRW (2D plane, you can be flying if you want) because it's a pain to keep track of 3d movement
It's a pain to track movement without a map/minis anyway. But you can get minis with a slider for flight levels, or just just set a Lego figure on a stack of poker chips, which makes tracking 3D movement as easy as tracking 2D.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on September 04, 2017, 09:26:19 PM
I myself use digital 3-d models of the maps quickly built with crude shapes, then use shapes I've pre-made to determine 3-d area of effects and measure movements and such with "measuring line planes". Faster than it may seem.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on September 04, 2017, 10:07:43 PM
Faster than it may seem.
Using marks of elevation you can lose a little range to increase the speed of things even more and free your self from computer dependency. Just add up the total number of squares and marks and then check against the area maps in the book (or shave some distance down and just treat everything as 5ft increments to skip the books). Like a target is three squares out, one to the left, with two marks, that's six squares in total and within a 30ft range.

Cones are kind of the same except anything with more marks than distance is probably outside of the cone's current width. It's not as accurate as calculating the square root to check distance like you should, but its close enough and faster then trying to handle a Grapple attempt and you can also just plain avoid most situations by not throwing a ton of low level trash at the players. Like it doesn't matter too much if one guy is just outside of the area, but ten of them? Now that may be worth scrutinizing.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Fzzr on September 06, 2017, 12:17:55 AM
I went through the new generic reals and found some inconsistencies.

Despite being even with the GUNDAM and VALKYRIE at all other levels, the ARM Slave (II) has Dodge Bonus +1. Presumably it should have dodge bonus +3 like the others.

The KNIGHTMARE (VI) has DR 35, while all other models at that level have DR 25. Presumably it should be the same as the others there.

ARM Slaves are slower than the other models at all other levels, but the ARM Slave (VI) is even with the GUNDAM and VALKYRIE of the same same level. Presumably it should have speed 45mu.

ARM Slaves are ahead in arsenal at all other levels, but the ARM Slave (VI) has 45 Arsenal space, below the GUNDAM at that level with 50. Presumably it's supposed to have 55 Arsenal space.

The ARM Slave (VII) has speed 40mu, putting it further behind the others than it is at any other level. Presumably it should have speed 50mu.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on September 09, 2017, 12:01:46 PM
Said inconsistencies should be fixed now.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Fzzr on September 09, 2017, 02:46:13 PM
Great, thanks.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on September 10, 2017, 03:40:28 PM
The multi-classing rules for Real/Super currently reads
Quote
For Arsenal acess Purposes, add togheter the Real Pilot level and Super Pilot Level-3 (minimum equal to Real Pilot level). Arsenal Spaces are added together.
This hasn't been updated since before Supers had an innate hardpoint. Should that hardpoint be added when multiclassing real/super?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on September 11, 2017, 05:28:45 AM
No, the base hardpoint of the super isn't supposed to add to a multiclass mecha, only the arsenal space.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on September 11, 2017, 10:58:48 AM
On the new 'shooting down incoming missiles' thing. First, it's awesome and I love it. Second, it currently reads:
Quote
If you're targeted by a weapon with "Missile" on their name, you may attempt to stop it by attacking it with your Defensive weapon. Make opposed attack rolls, and if you succeed the missile is stopped.
Should be in, not on (when mentioning missile weapons).
Also, this doesn't say it takes an action. Does it take the normal Immediate action of firing a defensive weapon, or is it free?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on September 11, 2017, 11:44:29 AM
On the new 'shooting down incoming missiles' thing. First, it's awesome and I love it.
Great! I was finally getting to write the Missile Massacre school, and while thinking of all cool missile scenes I remembered it's quite common to be able to intercept them, so made it a default option. Plus "shoot down missiles" is an ability showing up in quite some SRW games. :D

Second, it currently reads:
Quote
If you're targeted by a weapon with "Missile" on their name, you may attempt to stop it by attacking it with your Defensive weapon. Make opposed attack rolls, and if you succeed the missile is stopped.
Should be in, not on (when mentioning missile weapons).
Also, this doesn't say it takes an action. Does it take the normal Immediate action of firing a defensive weapon, or is it free?
Normal attack with the Defensive weapon, thus an immediate action.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on September 13, 2017, 05:36:19 PM
Something that just came up in statting enemies is that there's three different accessories for +AC at each arsenal tier, but only one for +To-Hit, and the +To-Hit accessory doesn't stack with Focus (because Insight Bonus) while the +AC ones do. Is this intentional? If not, you might want to change at least the bonus name for the +To-Hit accessories.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on September 14, 2017, 09:25:30 PM
Changed the Focus bonus type to perfection.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on September 20, 2017, 04:41:06 AM
Real Pilot's proficiency includes firearms.

But what firearms? Where are these firearms?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on September 20, 2017, 04:45:54 AM
DMG pages 145 and 146.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on September 20, 2017, 05:57:29 AM
Ugh there are no prices for the modern and future firearms in that book ~.~
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on September 20, 2017, 09:03:36 AM
Good point, so just made it here. (http://minmaxforum.com/index.php?topic=18207.msg329319#msg329319)
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on September 20, 2017, 03:24:03 PM
That's awesome, thank you <3

Would a pure metal laser pistol work?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: RickyRedhsirt on September 21, 2017, 08:54:47 PM
I'm wondering about the upgrade Tek Soul. Does it affect the Robot's HP or the Pilot's HP? Also, how does it interact with The Android's One with Machine ability?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on September 22, 2017, 04:07:35 AM
That's awesome, thank you <3

Would a pure metal laser pistol work?
I'll say yes for now.

I'm wondering about the upgrade Tek Soul. Does it affect the Robot's HP or the Pilot's HP? Also, how does it interact with The Android's One with Machine ability?

Pilot, clarified. Not very synergetic with One with the Machine since the halved HP would be the one applied to the mecha.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on September 22, 2017, 04:43:24 AM
Hey, 35,000 meseta/gp for a masterwork pure mercury laser pistol seems worth it to me considering all the benefits of using Acid kinda don't count (ignoring hardness for instance being removed from pure mercury) :p
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on September 22, 2017, 01:11:45 PM
I'm wondering about the upgrade Tek Soul. Does it affect the Robot's HP or the Pilot's HP? Also, how does it interact with The Android's One with Machine ability?

Pilot, clarified. Not very synergetic with One with the Machine since the halved HP would be the one applied to the mecha.

That seems kind of absurd then. It only penalizes you if you get crit in standard situations in a mecha campaign, and it's fairly easy for a high level super to be immune to crits entirely, at which point you're only penalized while on foot.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on September 22, 2017, 07:01:26 PM
Not really. If One with the Machine swaps the mecha's halved HP with the android's, and then halves it as well (instead of keeping the stats modifiers it gets from mecha progression and pilot channeled stats separate as usual), the pilot has twice the HP of the mecha. Which may well happen anyway to any other pilot whose mecha's hp gets halved for taking Tek soul.
For an android with one in the machine, the same risk applies. If your mecha recovers lost HP, you have more HP to lose than your mecha until you die within the mech. If the mecha does not repair and gets rekked, you may actually survive and get launched off instead of dying along with it.
The crit aspect isn't better or worse than it normally is.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on September 22, 2017, 08:20:23 PM
Not really. If One with the Machine swaps the mecha's halved HP with the android's, and then halves it as well (instead of keeping the stats modifiers it gets from mecha progression and pilot channeled stats separate as usual), the pilot has twice the HP of the mecha. Which may well happen anyway to any other pilot whose mecha's hp gets halved for taking Tek soul.
For an android with one in the machine, the same risk applies. If your mecha recovers lost HP, you have more HP to lose than your mecha until you die within the mech. If the mecha does not repair and gets rekked, you may actually survive and get launched off instead of dying along with it.
The crit aspect isn't better or worse than it normally is.

I'm talking about Tek Soul on its own. it doesn't change your mech's stats at all, it just cuts your (the pilot) HP in half...which means nothing if you're crit immune
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on September 23, 2017, 07:08:15 AM
Wait... he actually said it halves the pilot's hp. Odd. I asked that question not all that long ago and he had said that whenever the Upgrade used ambiguous terms like You/your it referred to the mecha, not the pilot. Guess that was the exception... but I had even used Tek Soul as the example. Though maybe the idea is since it referred to the pilot specifically once, it carries for every other term but it doesn't feel like that was intended then.

Quote from: oslecamo
Quote from: Anomander
Question on the terminology of some Super Robot upgrades.

Many upgrades uses terms that make slightly unclear whether they are meant to refer to the pilot himself, the super robot or both.
Quote
Tek Soul-Super Robot's main pilot maximum spirit points increases by 20 and they recover 4 extra spirit point per turn, but your HP is halved. You receive an extra +5 max spirit and 1 spirit regen if you're small, extra +10 max spirit and 2 spirit regen if you're tiny, extra +15 max spirit and 3 spirit regen if you're diminutive, extra +20 max spirit and 4 spirit regen if you're fine.
It is often used for the abilities that vary with size, in which case it seems meant to refer to the robot and not the pilot. But in the above example who/what does the HP halving affect?
Unless it specifically mentions the pilot,  it works with the super robot.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on September 23, 2017, 07:20:38 AM
My bad, thanks for the reminder Anomander. It's the super robot that gets halved HP, fixed.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on September 24, 2017, 03:02:32 PM
A question was just raised about moon vanguards in our campaign. When a Moon Vanguard is using Overdrive, do they count as a Medium mecha for size bonuses or a Fine mecha, given that they don't actually change in size. We've been playing it as if they count as medium, but I was wondering if I could get your word on the matter.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on September 25, 2017, 07:54:20 AM
Replied on the relevant thread. (http://minmaxforum.com/index.php?topic=7993.msg125395#msg125395) Please take further questions about the Moon Vanguard to the Moon Vanguard thread that belongs to another project.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Fzzr on September 25, 2017, 07:34:19 PM
Hiya. A number of questions came up during our last session and on the side.

Grappling:

Feats and Features:

I also thought of an interesting RAW option: A Real 19 Android can have an Infinity Cylinder with infinite ammo as an Integrated Weapon (at the cost of removing it from the mecha). No objection to this, it just amuses me.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on September 25, 2017, 10:26:33 PM
Quote
You can make an attack with an unarmed strike, natural weapon, or light weapon against another character you are grappling. You take a –4 penalty on such attacks.

Grapple rules.

If you have a natural heavy weapon, then yes, you can use it. If, for some reason, you are grappling and happy with this state of affairs.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Fzzr on September 25, 2017, 10:30:56 PM
Quote
You can make an attack with an unarmed strike, natural weapon, or light weapon against another character you are grappling. You take a –4 penalty on such attacks.

Grapple rules.

If you have a natural heavy weapon, then yes, you can use it. If, for some reason, you are grappling and happy with this state of affairs.

Do builtin weapons count as natural weapons?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on September 25, 2017, 10:51:59 PM
I think they did at one point, but that was changed because it let mecha spam far too many attacks at a low level, so now they use their own rules. Therefore: technically not.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Fzzr on September 26, 2017, 03:28:57 AM
In that case I guess the question is "Which mecha weapons count as Light for the purpose of grapple rules?"
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on September 26, 2017, 03:33:39 AM
Hiya. A number of questions came up during our last session and on the side.

Grappling:
  • Is there a way to tie up a pinned (by grapple) mecha? My immediate thought was that some or all of the Wire weapons should work as ropes for that purpose (probably the ones that can influence movement).
  • Can Heavy weapons be used while grappled? My instinct is no, since they are pretty much the opposite of "light" weapons and require Full actions to use, but there's no rule anywhere I could see.
  • If a mecha is tied up or otherwise helpless in a way that does not incapacitate the pilot, I assume the pilot can still use Spirits. Can they also get out of the mecha as normal, since they're not personally bound etc.?
-Added clause that Wire Hook can be useable as a rope.
-Added clause to intro that only Defensive weapons count as light for attacking while grappled.
-Added clause that the escape pod can be used at any time as an immediate action and also while grappled but not if pinned. If there was some cheesy effect to disable the mecha whitout disabling the pilot then that means the hatch's mechanism is staying closed too and sucks to be you, you're at the mercy of the cheesy character. Yes the pilot can use spirits regardless of the mecha's status.

Feats and Features:
  • Can an Android use Personal Firearms as Integrated Weapons? (Maybe only one handed ones, or only up to some price limit.)
  • Does the accessory from Advanced Combat Model also use up the Hardpoint on the Android's mecha, or just lock out that particular accessory?
  • If a character that's part of a HEATS combiner team dies or otherwise becomes non-available, what happens to the rest of the combiner? (Can it be rebuilt without the lost character on level up, for example?)

I also thought of an interesting RAW option: A Real 19 Android can have an Infinity Cylinder with infinite ammo as an Integrated Weapon (at the cost of removing it from the mecha). No objection to this, it just amuses me.
-No.
-Neither. They're separate acessories, one for the android and the other for the mecha.
-Added clause that you can change the team with 1d12 days of bonding.

Also seems like the Integrated weapon wasn't clear. You don't rip off the mecha's weapon/acessory, the android simply gets to pick a smaller version from the arsenal. Should be clearer now.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Fzzr on September 26, 2017, 11:31:32 AM
Great answers, thanks!
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on September 26, 2017, 01:07:02 PM
Quote
-Added clause that you can change the team with 1d12 days of bonding.

That's good, otherwise Getter Robo would be in trouble. :p
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Fzzr on September 28, 2017, 05:58:15 PM
Re: Sleipnir Weapons: Lightweight Ammo Melee weapons? My mecha is ready. :love
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on October 05, 2017, 05:56:32 PM
Some Qs, mostly about the Peace Princess:

Is it normal that their first level is particularly weak when compared to most of the pilot classes?
Supp gets a slightly watered down mecha, no spirit and instead of a caster/martial progression he gets the specialization abilities. I'm not sure how it balances out a the first level.
Peace Princess' 1st level perhaps isn't as afflicted despite her weaker mecha option being similar to most casters' and only getting a single option since she has access to the spell option.

Princess channeled abilities; remembering previous rulings on channeled abilities, they center around abilities that affect others while abilities that affect and modify your own attacks aren't channeled.
So it feels like abilities such as Hesitation, Tomorrow and spells that affect other targets and the Mercy effect being acquired by allies are channeled.
While abilities such as Royal Guard, Parley, High Connections, Mercy (self only) and Pretty Princess do not as they are self buffs or extra resources.
What of abilities like Defeat is an Option and Diplomatic Immunity that seem to be affecting others passively while also being kind of a self buff.

Political Princess feels channeled since it affects an area (and so only limits the princess herself if she cannot channel). Also should that ability start with a chosen Treaty and require the 1d12 days to change your selection, like the Support Staff's Counter Measure, which is pretty similar.
There is also the mention that "If multiple Political Princesses treaties overlap the same area, only the highest level one applies."
This refers to the highest Peace Princess class level or highest character level?

Beloved: This ability seems to stack with itself, allowing to use a fullround action three times per person/pick to max the relationship.

Let's All Live Together: It says that those who get destroyed are dropped to -9 hit points. Typically a creature that gets destroyed instead of killed at 0 hit points, so -9 hit points still recks them.

Praying Princess: Is it normal it gives the extra spirit recovery to the princess as well when all the similar abilities do not? Just making sure since it may be intended, being among the final abilities.

Android Soullessness: They were already given a means to benefit from specific class abilities through INT instead of CHA but could they also get a means to actually have a soul and benefit from CHA class abilities? Androids getting something akin to a soul or actual legit souls is a common theme. Particularly if they no longer start with the advantages justifying the Soulless' disability.

Ah, and should only the Arcane Pilot have access to the Phantasy Star spells? Those are pretty neat for any caster. Not necessarily arcane.

Also; how does Brilliant Energy weapons interact with mechas? Most mechas are entirely made of nonliving matter.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on October 17, 2017, 12:02:41 PM
First impressions.
Steel Soldier: Osl vanishes for a few weeks and than blam. Have a bunch of new Feats, four Classes, and one of them is all about energy drinks. Coincidence? I think not.
Magitech Knight: :lmao, nice mecha-paladin but the jab rolled a natural 1.
Ideal Idol: F**k yeah, heavy metal music in space!
Mecha Marine: Well I mean you did the rest I guess.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on October 17, 2017, 12:32:01 PM
Some Qs, mostly about the Peace Princess:

Is it normal that their first level is particularly weak when compared to most of the pilot classes?
Supp gets a slightly watered down mecha, no spirit and instead of a caster/martial progression he gets the specialization abilities. I'm not sure how it balances out a the first level.
Peace Princess' 1st level perhaps isn't as afflicted despite her weaker mecha option being similar to most casters' and only getting a single option since she has access to the spell option.
Support Staff gets Real Pilot arsenal progression, which gives them a nice array of toys to play with right away.

Princess channeled abilities; remembering previous rulings on channeled abilities, they center around abilities that affect others while abilities that affect and modify your own attacks aren't channeled.
So it feels like abilities such as Hesitation, Tomorrow and spells that affect other targets and the Mercy effect being acquired by allies are channeled.
While abilities such as Royal Guard, Parley, High Connections, Mercy (self only) and Pretty Princess do not as they are self buffs or extra resources.
What of abilities like Defeat is an Option and Diplomatic Immunity that seem to be affecting others passively while also being kind of a self buff.
I consider both of those self-buffs.

Political Princess feels channeled since it affects an area (and so only limits the princess herself if she cannot channel). Also should that ability start with a chosen Treaty and require the 1d12 days to change your selection, like the Support Staff's Counter Measure, which is pretty similar.
There is also the mention that "If multiple Political Princesses treaties overlap the same area, only the highest level one applies."
This refers to the highest Peace Princess class level or highest character level?
Highest character level.

Beloved: This ability seems to stack with itself, allowing to use a fullround action three times per person/pick to max the relationship.
There is no text for stacking on the same pilot, and bonus from the same source never stack unless explicitly pointed out.

Let's All Live Together: It says that those who get destroyed are dropped to -9 hit points. Typically a creature that gets destroyed instead of killed at 0 hit points, so -9 hit points still recks them.
Constructs and undead indeed are not alive to begin with and thus won't get to live together. :p

Praying Princess: Is it normal it gives the extra spirit recovery to the princess as well when all the similar abilities do not? Just making sure since it may be intended, being among the final abilities.
Yes.

Android Soullessness: They were already given a means to benefit from specific class abilities through INT instead of CHA but could they also get a means to actually have a soul and benefit from CHA class abilities? Androids getting something akin to a soul or actual legit souls is a common theme. Particularly if they no longer start with the advantages justifying the Soulless' disability.
Eeerr, examples? Not really anything coming up at the top of my head although it's late and I've just posted a bunch of stuff I had been writing down plus updated campaigns so head isn't exactly clear.

Ah, and should only the Arcane Pilot have access to the Phantasy Star spells? Those are pretty neat for any caster. Not necessarily arcane.
I don't feel like just throwing them around like freebies to standard classes. Maybe I could do some feats I guess.

Also had a plan to make a bunch of Divine Pilot spells based on healing and wind but ended in the backburner.

Also; how does Brilliant Energy weapons interact with mechas? Most mechas are entirely made of nonliving matter.
Indeed, Brilliant energy weapons cannot hurt mechas. Would work on einst though.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on October 17, 2017, 07:37:43 PM
Quote
Support Staff gets Real Pilot arsenal progression, which gives them a nice array of toys to play with right away.
As are the Real/Divine/similar pilots which I am comparing it with. Super versions get the upgrades instead. Speaking of those, less built-in weapons (and possibly no extra accessories) is a very small price to pay compared to half upgrade points.

Quote
There is no text for stacking on the same pilot, and bonus from the same source never stack unless explicitly pointed out.
Unless there is another clause about it somewhere, the rule against same-source stacking is for the numeric modifiers only and that feat already stacks with itself. But now I know for certain what was intended.

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Eeerr, examples? Not really anything coming up at the top of my head although it's late and I've just posted a bunch of stuff I had been writing down plus updated campaigns so head isn't exactly clear.
Off the top of my head I recall Aigis from Persona 3, Chachamaru from MS Negima, KOS-MOS from Xenosaga (I think). I recall Bender being some kind of ghost program (not the typical soul thing though, but just as good). It is also all over the place in Megaman (DNA Soul). I recall it is often pondered out loud by living characters as well but without any confirmation in scifi that present robots who become "more human than human".

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Indeed, Brilliant energy weapons cannot hurt mechas. Would work on einst though.
So they are just useless and do not bypass mechas and slice straight to living pilots within?

@Ideal Idol: Is it normal that the main stat of that class is Intelligence? Most Idols usually rely on their charm and are rarely known for their smarts.
Sure, they use tech to enhance their performance but it doesn't mean they have to be the ones building it. Current Idols hardly build their own audio/visual equipment.

@New classes in general: Is it normal they get a starting spirit and another right at the second level? Most of the classes get a bonus Feat at second level instead before getting their next spirit.
Or at least that's the trend.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on October 18, 2017, 02:38:15 AM
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Support Staff gets Real Pilot arsenal progression, which gives them a nice array of toys to play with right away.
As are the Real/Divine/similar pilots which I am comparing it with. Super versions get the upgrades instead. Speaking of those, less built-in weapons (and possibly no extra accessories) is a very small price to pay compared to half upgrade points.
Real Pilot gets a single stance at first level besides full Bab (and less skill points) while Divine Pilot gets a bunch of reduced mecha stats (and a lot less skill points) for the spellcasting.

Anyway increased the super mobile worker to 3/4 upgrade points. May be a bit too close to a full super but on the other hand still locked out of 4 point upgrades.

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Eeerr, examples? Not really anything coming up at the top of my head although it's late and I've just posted a bunch of stuff I had been writing down plus updated campaigns so head isn't exactly clear.
Off the top of my head I recall Aigis from Persona 3, Chachamaru from MS Negima, KOS-MOS from Xenosaga (I think). I recall Bender being some kind of ghost program (not the typical soul thing though, but just as good). It is also all over the place in Megaman (DNA Soul). I recall it is often pondered out loud by living characters as well but without any confirmation in scifi that present robots who become "more human than human".
None of those are really mecha shows besides arguably Xenosaga. Persona is a game about bidding souls to your will so pretty much everything has the potential of having one. Chachamaru probably has more magic on her contruction that any science and DNA Souls shows up in one spin-off game and is never mentioned again. You could make a case for cyber-elves from Megaman Zero, but then that means the protagonists are a bunch of necromancers sacrificing souls to advance their agenda.

So that leaves Kos-Mos, but she's a super prototype among super prototypes, so android with soul should be a prc in my humble opinion.

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Indeed, Brilliant energy weapons cannot hurt mechas. Would work on einst though.
So they are just useless and do not bypass mechas and slice straight to living pilots within?
Fluff-wise the mecha is big/thick enough that although the brilliant energy weapon can slice through it, you'll still need a pretty lucky shot to actually reach/hit the cockpit. Or maybe minor internal force fields around the cockpit are standard since every pilot without those died long ago.
Crunch-wise, no cheap tricks to directly attack the pilot.

@Ideal Idol: Is it normal that the main stat of that class is Intelligence? Most Idols usually rely on their charm and are rarely known for their smarts.
Sure, they use tech to enhance their performance but it doesn't mean they have to be the ones building it. Current Idols hardly build their own audio/visual equipment.
Currently we don't have mechas either. In the future, the most popular idols are those most adept at editing their footage and doing market research and whatnot. Besides the cha-based skills remain cha-based so it's not very adviseable to dump it.

@New classes in general: Is it normal they get a starting spirit and another right at the second level? Most of the classes get a bonus Feat at second level instead before getting their next spirit.
Or at least that's the trend.
The Magitech Knight only gets their second spirit at 5th. Shuffled the Steel Soldier and Mecha Marine's table a bit.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on October 19, 2017, 12:52:09 AM
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Real Pilot gets a single stance at first level besides full Bab (and less skill points) while Divine Pilot gets a bunch of reduced mecha stats (and a lot less skill points) for the spellcasting.
Along with a spirit and a feat, yes. The reduced mecha is optional and not required for self-buffs only, and they get a spirit too. Don't really want to argue. Just wanted to point it out.

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None of those are really mecha shows besides arguably Xenosaga. Persona is a game about bidding souls to your will so pretty much everything has the potential of having one. Chachamaru probably has more magic on her contruction that any science and DNA Souls shows up in one spin-off game and is never mentioned again. You could make a case for cyber-elves from Megaman Zero, but then that means the protagonists are a bunch of necromancers sacrificing souls to advance their agenda.
They may well be. Or robotic equivalents. X turned his soul into cyber elves, so apparently he had one. Apparently Zero's got one too.
I don't know many Mecha shows/games though the idea was more about scifi in general, losing the soulless debuff whether because those got an actual soul (such as being a living creature transferred into an android body) or because they are so life-like in their behavior that it is hard to tell the difference. Such as an android musician that has such talent and plays with such soul that he may as well have one, even if it doesn't, really. But that part of them could also be a weakness (even though they are already vulnerable to mind-affecting things and can be resurrected/raised somehow, which is kinda weird). They could dream, and so sleep and the likes. Androids with emotions are a lot easier to connect with than most other constructs that aren't barred from using Charisma and their natural penalty to charisma is made less of a penalty for not being able to use it for most stuff you could need it for beyond skill usage. They could also get an extra penalty to social skills when interacting with organic creatures, unless perhaps they manage to hide their artificial nature.

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Currently we don't have mechas either. In the future, the most popular idols are those most adept at editing their footage and doing market research and whatnot. Besides the cha-based skills remain cha-based so it's not very adviseable to dump it.
Don't they employ people for that? Same as the ship captain who doesn't go tune up his reactors himself. Idols across eons are usual Idols because they are personalities. They are known because people connect to them and love them. That's all charisma.
There ARE genius musicians, certainly. They make great music (after all, Perform is CHA but Crafting musical pieces is INT) but in a show, the hallmark of the Idol is that they drive their fans wild (even with terrible music) because they perform with style and know how to keep them hooked even when they aren't playing. Their life is a performance.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on October 19, 2017, 01:25:33 AM
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Their life is a performance.

Are you saying it doesn't take Intelligence to set up a long con like that?  :rolleyes
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on October 19, 2017, 09:03:53 AM
Bluff and Perform are both charisma based.
And to many it just comes naturally and may not actually be a con except perhaps planned scandals meant to have people talk about them, and those are often planned by other people for them too. The Idols are the face but most have a whole team behind them. Often the one that made them Idols in the first place.
Idols that are smart have more skill points which could allow them to do more of the job on their own but ultimately being an Idol is all about connecting with people (or at least people feeling like they connect with them), and that's charisma.
In mecha stuff, I think I only know Lacus Clyne/Meer Campbell and, while the former isn't totally stupid (and probably has more levels in Peace Princess anyway), their work as an Idol was all depending on their charisma.

Looking at the Peace Princess again, looks like she does not actually progress arsenal options for her mech. She her only means to get any installed is through her Connections ability line or by multiclassing, counting only the levels of those pilot classes and they do not stack with Connections, so it is one or the other. Though it mentions that if you have a temp mecha for redeeming quests, you count as being three levels lower for arsenal options as well, except that seems redundant if you have at least 3 peace princess levels since they don't count toward arsenal progression anyway. Arsenal level accessed through Connections are acquired differently.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on October 21, 2017, 11:51:32 AM
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None of those are really mecha shows besides arguably Xenosaga. Persona is a game about bidding souls to your will so pretty much everything has the potential of having one. Chachamaru probably has more magic on her contruction that any science and DNA Souls shows up in one spin-off game and is never mentioned again. You could make a case for cyber-elves from Megaman Zero, but then that means the protagonists are a bunch of necromancers sacrificing souls to advance their agenda.
They may well be. Or robotic equivalents. X turned his soul into cyber elves, so apparently he had one. Apparently Zero's got one too.
I would say X ascended into an higher form, since every other cyber elf never had a body in the first place. And the bit where Zero is not sure if he's Zero anymore or a copy is supposed to be a big point. Copy-X also got a new body with copied memories after all.

I don't know many Mecha shows/games though the idea was more about scifi in general, losing the soulless debuff whether because those got an actual soul (such as being a living creature transferred into an android body) or because they are so life-like in their behavior that it is hard to tell the difference. Such as an android musician that has such talent and plays with such soul that he may as well have one, even if it doesn't, really. But that part of them could also be a weakness (even though they are already vulnerable to mind-affecting things and can be resurrected/raised somehow, which is kinda weird). They could dream, and so sleep and the likes. Androids with emotions are a lot easier to connect with than most other constructs that aren't barred from using Charisma and their natural penalty to charisma is made less of a penalty for not being able to use it for most stuff you could need it for beyond skill usage. They could also get an extra penalty to social skills when interacting with organic creatures, unless perhaps they manage to hide their artificial nature.
About the raise dead bit, it's connected to the "can be healed by stuff that heals living" bit. They're complex enough for that stuff to work on them. This is, a cure light wounds works just fine in a rock/metal elemental. Also for gameplay convenience's sake.

Also half their point is working close to humanoids. Similar enough to be familiar, but not so similar your instincts start screaming something is wrong. If you don't need to interact with humanoids, there's a lot more efficient ways to build robots after all.

Again I'm willing to consider a way to remove soulless, but I don't want it to be a simple feat/trait/ACF.

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Currently we don't have mechas either. In the future, the most popular idols are those most adept at editing their footage and doing market research and whatnot. Besides the cha-based skills remain cha-based so it's not very adviseable to dump it.
Don't they employ people for that? Same as the ship captain who doesn't go tune up his reactors himself. Idols across eons are usual Idols because they are personalities. They are known because people connect to them and love them. That's all charisma.
There ARE genius musicians, certainly. They make great music (after all, Perform is CHA but Crafting musical pieces is INT) but in a show, the hallmark of the Idol is that they drive their fans wild (even with terrible music) because they perform with style and know how to keep them hooked even when they aren't playing. Their life is a performance.
Nah, that's bards. Idols spend a lot of time training and preparing their dresses/make-ups and whatnot. Even their musics are carefully refined ahead of time, that's why the Ideal Idol is a prepared spellcaster and needs to decide which Idol Musics to use ahead of time instead of improvising on the spot.

Plus this way we get vocaloids Android Idols by default. :p

Idols that are smart have more skill points which could allow them to do more of the job on their own but ultimately being an Idol is all about connecting with people (or at least people feeling like they connect with them), and that's charisma.
In mecha stuff, I think I only know Lacus Clyne/Meer Campbell and, while the former isn't totally stupid (and probably has more levels in Peace Princess anyway), their work as an Idol was all depending on their charisma.
You never saw any Macross? Really? At least one SRW title has a morale-regenerating items in the form of limited-edition music CDs from a macross idol (insert joke about they having tech for making space-faring transforming mechas but still using CDs).

Plus yeah, mecha show idols are usually relatively smart. But if I made the Ideal Idol cha-based, then there would be little reason for them to buff Int.

Looking at the Peace Princess again, looks like she does not actually progress arsenal options for her mech. She her only means to get any installed is through her Connections ability line or by multiclassing, counting only the levels of those pilot classes and they do not stack with Connections, so it is one or the other. Though it mentions that if you have a temp mecha for redeeming quests, you count as being three levels lower for arsenal options as well, except that seems redundant if you have at least 3 peace princess levels since they don't count toward arsenal progression anyway. Arsenal level accessed through Connections are acquired differently.
Ah, my bad, fixed.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on October 21, 2017, 12:49:33 PM
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Again I'm willing to consider a way to remove soulless, but I don't want it to be a simple feat/trait/ACF.
Oh, that's fine. I find the way it works odd as other constructs and soulless stuff don't have that penalty but game mechanics are what they are.

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Also for gameplay convenience's sake.
Ah. All right. For convenience.

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But if I made the Ideal Idol cha-based, then there would be little reason for them to buff Int.
Why would they want to buff it? Idols can still do their job with zero brain. Sometimes it might actually make it easier. Just having good base skill points as part of their class fixes it.
Not having a reason to buff Cha seems a much bigger concern.

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Plus this way we get vocaloids Android Idols by default.
To make it accessible to androids? I quickly checked a Macross clip (indeed never watched the shows) of Ranka (Alto's Birthday Present scene). Looks pretty CHA-based to me. Singing, dancing, posing, and her power affects people during the actual performances. Generally trying to appeal and be loved by the audience and making a difference by her personality alone and her song touching even the enemy's heart. If an android cannot be a proper bard, makes sense they wouldn't make proper Idols/Vocaloids either without the Cold Calculations feat, which makes sense to a point since everything they generate is soulless.
But your version of the Idol doesn't even know how to Perform and may as well dump her Charisma stat. It is very odd. But as usual, this is your stuff and you can do whatever you want.
Right now the space Idols are uncharismatic, they can't sing, can't dance, have no personal magnetism, no personality and are possibly ugly. But they can do your calculus no problem. Don't see how that would match any version of the Idols anywhere. I don't play bards so it's not like I'll ever play one but it feels flagrantly wrong to me all the same. End of parenthesis.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on October 21, 2017, 01:17:05 PM
Ah, I knew I had forgot something-Perform as class skill added.  :P

Idol Music still needs ranks in it just like Bardic Music, and some effects are directly based on your perform checks, so Cha is still useful.

(Also Ranka's pretty far from a brainless bimbo, but that's something only noticeable when watching the whole series).
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on October 21, 2017, 01:45:21 PM
Not saying she's dumb. Just that Intelligence doesn't seem to be relevant or particularly important to what she does having an effect. At least not half as useful as her charisma.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on October 21, 2017, 08:54:38 PM
Meh in the end she logically deduces the enemy's weak point to hit for massive damage (when a bunch of veteran pilots and the tech guys couldn't), would say charisma didn't play that much on that.

There's also Basara Nekki from another Macross whose rock music is as likely to piss other people off as not, isn't exactly a beauty, but smart enough to heavyly pimp his ride to make sure he's heard in the thick of battle and even adapt other mechas on the fly. He's also been known to kiss women so badly they fall into coma and his music to leading other pilots to self-destruct their machines with themselves inside. Basara even wears goofy glasses like the nerd he is!

Latooni's the super smart glasses girl from SRW's original characters, yet she also knows how to put up a great idol show when fighting along Shine. The princess technically dances as well, but it's explicitly said Latooni's the one controlling both mechas during their combo attack.

Then Miu Kujou from Kurogane no Linebarrel (manga version) starts as literally a 3rd rate pop idol who is bullied and harassed (specially by her own group's fellow idols) until she becomes a mecha pilot. Then in her first battle she dance-fights a city into rubble. Her own hometown where her parents were still living. Let's just say she has trouble maintaining whatever popularity she had left by then, with her own teammates growing more afraid/suspicious of her.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on October 21, 2017, 11:41:43 PM
That's a successful knowledge check. Bards get a special lore check (your Idol doesn't get that one though) too on top of having the knowledges as class skills. Logic itself isn't a class ability, still (except when it somehow is). Are her abilities throughout the whole thing tending to be based on Intelligence or Charisma? If Intelligence, is that the case for the majority of the Idols or is this more of an exception among them?

Basara wears John Lenon glasses. More of a musician's style than nerdiness (they even have a colored tint). Looks like he's pretty popular with the girls. He's such a charisma-based character that "rather than destroying them (his enemies), he wants to win them over."

Latooni dancing as part of her attacks does not make her an Idol. Being smart and using her Intelligence as her main source of power or not is thus irrelevant.

What about Miu Kujou isn't charisma-based then? Being feared is another instance of Charisma usage. Being charismatic doesn't by itself means popular. Especially if your opponents are more charismatic than you, which by the looks of it seems to be the case, her being a third rate Idol against fellow Idols.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on October 22, 2017, 12:22:18 AM
Latooni dancing as part of her attacks does not make her an Idol. Being smart and using her Intelligence as her main source of power or not is thus irrelevant.

Wow, pause...

Please go check Latooni's Royal Heart Break (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvYY8VAs_vI) and consider if you want to review your statement.

(click to show/hide)
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on October 22, 2017, 02:14:13 AM
So it all goes down to that one character now? Her profile shows nothing that leads me to think she's an Idol. That clip looks more like a fancy battle move SFX that she cannot perform on her own. Perhaps special effects accompanying a martial stance when grouped with another's.
If she's an Idol all the same, somehow, then she's a very special one. Some strange exception. Seems more like a dervish/battledancer type.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on October 22, 2017, 03:10:18 AM
So it all goes down to that one character now?
Before replying to the others wanted to check where you stand about Latooni, because Royal Heart Break may just be the most Idolish ability in the whole super robot wars series even taking in account Macross ones. If that's not Idol enough for you, then nothing is.

Her profile shows nothing that leads me to think she's an Idol. That clip looks more like a fancy battle move SFX that she cannot perform on her own. Perhaps special effects accompanying a martial stance when grouped with another's.
If she's an Idol all the same, somehow, then she's a very special one. Some strange exception. Seems more like a dervish/battledancer type.
You shouldn't trust srw english wikis too much, they're woefully incomplete. Shine's basically the sponsor of Latooni's idol career. The princess's paid for the fairlions out of her kingdom own pocket and she's been known for liking to help other people show off, including having an army of maids and buttlers dress up half the original cast. Latooni is Shine's closest friend and brings in the skillz to pull the moves to make the whole thing work during actual battle. The stage and crowd out of nowhere are never properly explained but I personally see it as the whole thing being streamed in real time  to some stadium, which would fit Shine's excentric personality just fine. That or magic. Either way it's Latooni's who is actually leading the show and Shine's along for the ride.

Now Latooni's main job technically is being a military pilot but being an Idol's kinda a part time job anyway. The character I used for the class's pic is after all a professional Hunter but sometimes you gotta dress up and sing on stage to get the people's morale up.


That's a successful knowledge check. Bards get a special lore check (your Idol doesn't get that one though) too on top of having the knowledges as class skills. Logic itself isn't a class ability, still (except when it somehow is). Are her abilities throughout the whole thing tending to be based on Intelligence or Charisma? If Intelligence, is that the case for the majority of the Idols or is this more of an exception among them?
Well by that logic Ranka could be a plain bard. She technically doesn't even get a machine after all.

Basara wears John Lenon glasses. More of a musician's style than nerdiness (they even have a colored tint). Looks like he's pretty popular with the girls. He's such a charisma-based character that "rather than destroying them (his enemies), he wants to win them over."
Still piloting his ride with a guitar-shaped controller. That's really high in the nerd scale last time I checked.

And again he makes his enemies self-destruct.

What about Miu Kujou isn't charisma-based then? Being feared is another instance of Charisma usage. Being charismatic doesn't by itself means popular. Especially if your opponents are more charismatic than you, which by the looks of it seems to be the case, her being a third rate Idol against fellow Idols.

Well, for starters you claim that "rather than destroying them (his enemies), he wants to win them over." is a sign of super charisma, while Miu Kujou's...
(click to show/hide)
As for fear, there's keeping people under control by fear. That's a form of charisma. But more often than not Miu's has the uncharismatic version of fear, where she ends up turning people against her.

On the other hand she was smart enough to find her machine by herself searching when virtually every other pilot in the series had their machines either gifted or the mecha go to them, after which Miu Kujou also figured out its special abilities pretty fast too.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on October 22, 2017, 10:35:23 AM
So Latooni indeed cannot do that move without Shine doing it with her. Is Shine the actual Idol? Are the crowd in your theory there for her or her bodyguard?

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Royal Heart Break may just be the most Idolish ability in the whole super robot wars series
I'm not hearing her sing, nor playing music. Her mecha has no speakers or anything. She's dancing and bardic music doesn't care for dance while it is an important Idol thing.
Even though she's leading the attack, she feels like Shine's sidekick, helping make *her* look good, and outside of that move she's still just battledancing.
And it is only the one attack. So it probably is just one of those special attack SFX, not so different from when the sky suddenly goes dark, blood red, from a clear sky to a dark storm, bunch of random flower petals popin' up and similar and after the attack it's all gone.

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Still piloting his ride with a guitar-shaped controller. That's really high in the nerd scale last time I checked.
And again he makes his enemies self-destruct.
In the musician-scale even more. If you were a guitarist and you were told you could control your ride with a guitar, you'd go nuts. Nerds would probably use a game controller instead, and even then I've seen a bunch of retards play games so it isn't very conclusive on the Intelligence scale and certainly not an indicator that you're fighting using Intelligence. Using Perform even to pilot the mecha is putting his charisma to work constantly.
Killing enemies with music nothing new. "Music is their weakpoint" happens often. Senki Zesshou Symphogear does it all the time. RahXephon has the mecha/dolems using sound to fight, Mars Attack... send an enemy that is weak to music and up comes a musician hero to defeat them. Killing enemies with music does not make you an Idol by default either. Just means that you can use music as a weapon and Basara has this spirita special music-based power that is particularly effective.

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Well, for starters you claim that "rather than destroying them (his enemies), he wants to win them over." is a sign of super charisma, while Miu Kujou's...
Even the Peace Princess got a Cha-based ability to be able to perform mass-slaughter. Psycho-killing a lot of people is thus not indicative of low Charisma either. Nor is it indicative of high Intelligence.

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On the other hand she was smart enough to find her machine by herself searching when virtually every other pilot in the series had their machines either gifted or the mecha go to them, after which Miu Kujou also figured out its special abilities pretty fast too.
She could find her class abilities. Nice. Robots are often found by fate or luck. Simon was smart enough to find the Lagann in the bowels of the earth too. Are those abilities she found Intelligence-based and are they Idol abilities or something anybody could have done?

Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on October 22, 2017, 11:17:30 AM
Before replying to the others wanted to check where you stand about Latooni, because Royal Heart Break may just be the most Idolish ability in the whole super robot wars series even taking in account Macross ones. If that's not Idol enough for you, then nothing is.

Royal Heart Breaker may be the most idol-ish ability in SRW, but Latooni is *not* an idol. She's a Real Robot Pilot through and through. her backstory, her characterization, and everything she does that isn't RHB is incredibly Real Robot. She's part of the Agressors, the most skilled piloting squadron in the earth sphere!
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on October 22, 2017, 08:18:35 PM
Before replying to the others wanted to check where you stand about Latooni, because Royal Heart Break may just be the most Idolish ability in the whole super robot wars series even taking in account Macross ones. If that's not Idol enough for you, then nothing is.

Royal Heart Breaker may be the most idol-ish ability in SRW, but Latooni is *not* an idol. She's a Real Robot Pilot through and through. her backstory, her characterization, and everything she does that isn't RHB is incredibly Real Robot. She's part of the Agressors, the most skilled piloting squadron in the earth sphere!
Lolwhut?

I don't recall a single time the gang gets all together and the Aggressors are picked up to lead the charge against the final big bad. That's usually the ATX or SRX teams. None of the Agressor's members were even a main character in my memory, in contrast to Kyosuke/Excellen, Ryusei, Khushua, Sanger motherfucking Zonvolt, etc. Which Aggressor exactly is more skilled than the Sword that Smites Evil? Or more skilled than the pilot who tames a mecha-sized god to use as her ride?

And Latooni in particular had the very shameful display of letting a cutting edge prototype get stolen while she was riding it at the start of OG2. By somebody piloting a basic lion. I'll repeat it for good measure, Latooni in a high grade prototype gets her ass handed to her by somebody in the second most mook model in the whole series, basic cannon fodder even back at the start of OG1. That's hardly a great show of skill, and I'm pretty sure any serious military wouldn't keep around somebody who just lets the enemy loot their brand new super expensive machine from under your nose, at least not without some punishment.

But Latooni's the original's mascot, up to the point she was wearing a super frilly dress at the time, so of course they talk to the high brass to forgive her and let her in a new machine.

She also adds "wa" at the end of lots of her sentences in japanese too to go along her frilly dress for max moe character. Even in the wiki she's dressed like an idol whereas full real pilots are actually in their military/pilot uniforms.

So Latooni indeed cannot do that move without Shine doing it with her. Is Shine the actual Idol? Are the crowd in your theory there for her or her bodyguard?
Latooni's not Shine's bodyguard, they're not sticking together everywhere. Shine's a peace princess (I used her pic for a reason), and as pointed above Latooni knows how to be pretty popular by herself to the point she evades punishment for letting brand new prototypes mugged because she can drive those around to adore her (did I mention how she dresses the most frilly of any original character during battle?)

Shine in the other hand started as a "higher than thou" arrogant brat and only started getting better after another Original heavily chastised her.

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Royal Heart Break may just be the most Idolish ability in the whole super robot wars series
I'm not hearing her sing, nor playing music. Her mecha has no speakers or anything. She's dancing and bardic music doesn't care for dance while it is an important Idol thing.
Even though she's leading the attack, she feels like Shine's sidekick, helping make *her* look good, and outside of that move she's still just battledancing.
And it is only the one attack. So it probably is just one of those special attack SFX, not so different from when the sky suddenly goes dark, blood red, from a clear sky to a dark storm, bunch of random flower petals popin' up and similar and after the attack it's all gone.
Or I could actually make a class about fighting in stage while making the crowd go wild instead of dismissing it as "just SFX". Latooni's a big part of that inspiration.

Plus trivia, Latooni's clothing change in the middle of action is something Macross idols have been known to do.

And where do you think the background music is coming from? :p
(before you claim every pilot has music, also anybody in D&D can play an instrument, but a bard gets to it to provide bonus)
Changed Idol Music to Idol Show anyway.

Also remember me to make some feat or prc to make skies suddenly go dark and blood red and whatnot when you unleash your special attack. :smirk

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Still piloting his ride with a guitar-shaped controller. That's really high in the nerd scale last time I checked.
And again he makes his enemies self-destruct.
In the musician-scale even more. If you were a guitarist and you were told you could control your ride with a guitar, you'd go nuts. Nerds would probably use a game controller instead, and even then I've seen a bunch of retards play games so it isn't very conclusive on the Intelligence scale and certainly not an indicator that you're fighting using Intelligence. Using Perform even to pilot the mecha is putting his charisma to work constantly.
Killing enemies with music nothing new. "Music is their weakpoint" happens often. Senki Zesshou Symphogear does it all the time. RahXephon has the mecha/dolems using sound to fight, Mars Attack... send an enemy that is weak to music and up comes a musician hero to defeat them. Killing enemies with music does not make you an Idol by default either. Just means that you can use music as a weapon and Basara has this spirita special music-based power that is particularly effective.
You can have high Int and still look like a retard if your Cha and Wis are low enough.

On the other hand right now we have the tech to make any mechanical ride controllable by a guitar, but how many musicians do you see doing it? None that I remember, and that's because piloting a vehicle with a guitar is a demonstration of nerd gaming skillz like Ryusei and... Crap, I just cornered myself.  :blush

Ok you win this one.

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Well, for starters you claim that "rather than destroying them (his enemies), he wants to win them over." is a sign of super charisma, while Miu Kujou's...
Even the Peace Princess got a Cha-based ability to be able to perform mass-slaughter. Psycho-killing a lot of people is thus not indicative of low Charisma either. Nor is it indicative of high Intelligence.
Couple Key differences is that a)genocyde princess gets others to help her instead of they going "bitch be crazy, somebody restrain her!" and b)she's not actively enjoying it, rather taking it as serious dirty work that needs to be done. Miu is loving that shit, but doesn't get anybody else to follow her killing sprees.

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On the other hand she was smart enough to find her machine by herself searching when virtually every other pilot in the series had their machines either gifted or the mecha go to them, after which Miu Kujou also figured out its special abilities pretty fast too.
She could find her class abilities. Nice. Robots are often found by fate or luck. Simon was smart enough to find the Lagann in the bowels of the earth too. Are those abilities she found Intelligence-based and are they Idol abilities or something anybody could have done?
Search is indeed Int based and she was smart enough to figure out "if I follow the main character, some new machine is bound to be nearby, then just gotta snatch it up first before somebody else does", which makes her one of the smartest characters in the series. Not randomly wandering and tripping in a cockpit. Miu knew what she was getting herself into.

Anyway I bring a new Int Idol example that I can't believe I forgot: Lulu V.Britannia!
-Loves to put up a great show.
-Gets about half the world dancing to his tune.
-Great at buffing his allies.
-Even has magic powers based on charming/dominating others!
-Definitely Int based. Chess master, tactical genius, plans multiple steps ahead.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on October 22, 2017, 10:37:22 PM
Quote
Latooni's not Shine's bodyguard
Just reporting what the wiki says.

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Couple Key differences is that a)genocyde princess gets others to help her instead of they going "bitch be crazy, somebody restrain her!" and b)she's not actively enjoying it, rather taking it as serious dirty work that needs to be done. Miu is loving that shit, but doesn't get anybody else to follow her killing sprees
Don't see how that makes any difference. Being good at killing does not equal being an Idol. Nor intelligence being the main stat involved.

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Search is indeed Int based and she was smart enough to figure out "if I follow the main character, some new machine is bound to be nearby, then just gotta snatch it up first before somebody else does", which makes her one of the smartest characters in the series. Not randomly wandering and tripping in a cockpit. Miu knew what she was getting herself into.
Maybe she multiclassed into that mecha-finding class you're brewing. Are those mecha-abilities she found in the mecha Intelligence-based and were they dependent on being an Idol? How are her actual Idol abilities reflecting being Int-based instead of what is common to Idols?

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Anyway I bring a new Int Idol example that I can't believe I forgot: Lulu V.Britannia!
He isn't a Peace Prince/ss? Being actual royalty helps here. Maybe a multiclass but he wouldn't need to.
-Loves to put up a great show.  Cha.
-Gets about half the world dancing to his tune. Cha
-Great at buffing his allies. Could be either way. But Peace Princess are good at buffing too.
-Even has magic powers based on charming/dominating others! Arcane Genetics. Though the power comes from another so whether it counts or not as his own class ability is debatable. It's still mystic stuff that feels pretty Cha-based.
-Definitely Int based. Chess master, tactical genius, plans multiple steps ahead. Maybe the Peace Princess should be Int-based. Kidding. Actually... it could. But not by default. Doesn't feel like the norm. Kinda like the Idol.

His intelligence shines in battle in his ability to control very complicated mecha systems. His ability to find good tactics for his troops and generally making great plans aren't class abilities, though. It is more a part of the character knowing how to use everyone's abilities and talents correctly to get the best results. Being a great leader and a magnificent manipulating bastard is Charisma-based but similarly more of an application of skills. He's good at making people believe in him and playing with their mind and make people no longer want to kill him or even turn against their allies, which is something the Peace Princess actually gets as class abilities. But when he actually fights he is definitely making good use of his Intelligence with a mecha built to make the best of it.

Looking at the Peace Princess again, it feels like the Idol could just as well be some kind of Peace Princess, replacing an ability with occasional Bardic Music-like feature. Many PP abilities make sense for an Idol too.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on October 23, 2017, 12:19:51 AM
Quote
Latooni's not Shine's bodyguard
Just reporting what the wiki says.
Ah, that's more of the high brass ordering latooni to make sure Shine doesn't get herself killed when the princess insists on fighting in the frontlines. Thought you were talking about a class feature. But even then that only starts in the mid OG2 (Shine isn't playable at all before while Latooni is), and at the start of OG Gaiden Shine is again left behind while Latooni's on the frontlines.

Rest of the points stands. Int based in frilly clothes and glasses for the sake of glasses, most Idolish ability in any mecha media.

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Couple Key differences is that a)genocyde princess gets others to help her instead of they going "bitch be crazy, somebody restrain her!" and b)she's not actively enjoying it, rather taking it as serious dirty work that needs to be done. Miu is loving that shit, but doesn't get anybody else to follow her killing sprees
Don't see how that makes any difference. Being good at killing does not equal being an Idol. Nor intelligence being the main stat involved.
It shows her charisma isn't anything to write home about. She however does it as a (twisted) way to get attention.

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Search is indeed Int based and she was smart enough to figure out "if I follow the main character, some new machine is bound to be nearby, then just gotta snatch it up first before somebody else does", which makes her one of the smartest characters in the series. Not randomly wandering and tripping in a cockpit. Miu knew what she was getting herself into.
Maybe she multiclassed into that mecha-finding class you're brewing.
Unlikely since she pilots the same machine for the rest of her career.

Are those mecha-abilities she found in the mecha Intelligence-based and were they dependent on being an Idol? How are her actual Idol abilities reflecting being Int-based instead of what is common to Idols?
She coordinates a couple giant independent beast robots (note: nobody else on the side of the protagonists gets giant independent robots). And again she loves to make her fights showy. But again she ends up getting people to despise her.


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Anyway I bring a new Int Idol example that I can't believe I forgot: Lulu V.Britannia!
He isn't a Peace Prince/ss? Being actual royalty helps here. Maybe a multiclass but he wouldn't need to.
-Loves to put up a great show.  Cha.
-Gets about half the world dancing to his tune. Cha
Never heard of skill synergies?

Besides Lulu gets rejected every time he tries to get some private action from a girl

-Great at buffing his allies. Could be either way. But Peace Princess are good at buffing too.
Not over a wide area.

-Even has magic powers based on charming/dominating others! Arcane Genetics. Though the power comes from another so whether it counts or not as his own class ability is debatable. It's still mystic stuff that feels pretty Cha-based.
Lulu can keep multiple simultaneous buffs over a wide area in a lot of people. Arcane Genetics... Cannot.

His intelligence shines in battle in his ability to control very complicated mecha systems. His ability to find good tactics for his troops and generally making great plans aren't class abilities, though. It is more a part of the character knowing how to use everyone's abilities and talents correctly to get the best results.
At the end of his first season his army is winning the battle, but then he leaves and suddenly his troops hold for some more time then suddenly lose all competence and get curbstomped. It's as bardic musicish Idol Showish as you can get.

Being a great leader and a magnificent manipulating bastard is Charisma-based but similarly more of an application of skills.
You know that being skillful is a sign of high Int, not high Cha, right?

He's good at making people believe in him and playing with their mind and make people no longer want to kill him or even turn against their allies, which is something the Peace Princess actually gets as class abilities.
Lulu avoids being killed by either charming/dominating his attackers or getting them killed first.
Even then by the end of the second season his first army is trying to kill him and Lulu's own little sister wants to nuke him from (almost) orbit. Even face to face Lullany only gives up on murdering her big brother when magically brainwashed.


But when he actually fights he is definitely making good use of his Intelligence with a mecha built to make the best of it.
Lulu spends half the first season in a mook model and even when he gets his own super prototype, he's infamous for dropping like a chump whenever anybody gets closer than long artillery range. He's at his most effective behind several lines of other people to buff.

Looking at the Peace Princess again, it feels like the Idol could just as well be some kind of Peace Princess, replacing an ability with occasional Bardic Music-like feature. Many PP abilities make sense for an Idol too.
No, they don't. Idol Show increases your allies killyness over a wide area. Peace Princes's buffs that increase offense are few and short ranged. That's why I made a whole new class, and I won't set it on fire just because you think Peace Princesses should be about siblings driving armies into suicidical frenzies to murder each other leaving only a blasted wasteland on their wake.

It's one of the most important points of the show. An actual Peace Princess presents an alternate plan to Lulu to solve everything without further bloodshed, and Lulu's reply is to turn the streets red.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on October 25, 2017, 01:14:21 AM
Ain't got time to post anything much these days. Actually gotta jet within minutes. Just quickly asking two questions:

Q1: The Child Soldier trait states that "You cannot benefit from magic items on your possession, nor mundane items worth more than 10 GP besides non-magic non-masterwork weapons you're proficient with" but also that all money gained is wasted on useless stuff.
For stuff worth 10gp or less and mundane non-masterwork weapons, is the only way to get them finding them or is spending money on those normally okay?

Q2: When your class requires spending money to advance (such as the Half-Golem levels, case in point) or for a class ability, can money be spent on those normally (as long as it fits the rest of the requirements, such as not having magic items nor using the ability to store/assimilate equipment)? Or are you simply unable to take the trait/lose the trait if you take such a level?

Yes, still considering that feature to get rid of wealth management concerns.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on October 25, 2017, 11:09:38 AM
Ain't got time to post anything much these days. Actually gotta jet within minutes. Just quickly asking two questions:

Q1: The Child Soldier trait states that "You cannot benefit from magic items on your possession, nor mundane items worth more than 10 GP besides non-magic non-masterwork weapons you're proficient with" but also that all money gained is wasted on useless stuff.
For stuff worth 10gp or less and mundane non-masterwork weapons, is the only way to get them finding them or is spending money on those normally okay?
You can buy them too.

Q2: When your class requires spending money to advance (such as the Half-Golem levels, case in point) or for a class ability, can money be spent on those normally (as long as it fits the rest of the requirements, such as not having magic items nor using the ability to store/assimilate equipment)? Or are you simply unable to take the trait/lose the trait if you take such a level?
If you have the trait, you could not take class levels that demand money or use such abilities.

Although now I guess one may use Retro Tattoos for that. Tell you what, you come up with a nice wording for that andpost here an updated  trait list to save me work, and I'll allow it.

Yes, still considering that feature to get rid of wealth management concerns.

So now Mao will be saving for retirement and family? :P
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on October 25, 2017, 06:32:59 PM
Quote from: Osle
So now Mao will be saving for retirement and family? :P
Probably sending all the monies to charities she'd have founded. Parum's Community Foundation or somesuch, helping orphans, improving the living conditions among Parum's poorer communities. Extended to the ship's colonies while she is part of the colonization project. Supporting what could be considered a very large family.

Quote from: Osle
Although now I guess one may use Retro Tattoos for that. Tell you what, you come up with a nice wording for that and post here an updated  trait list to save me work, and I'll allow it.
Ah, true. Good idea. Here's something that could fit the general idea.

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Retro Tattoo: Choose a magic item worth 1500 GP or less that's been printed in an official D&D book and doesn't have limited uses that don't recharge (a bag of tricks would be fine, a wand or scroll not). You gain the benefits of that items as if you had equipped it.
Alternatively you may use up to 1500 GP to pay for the expenses required for your class abilities or feats. The class ability/feat must specifically state the amount of wealth required to use it. Once this option is selected and used, it can only be exchanged with another Retro Tattoo Neo Skill and you must keep track of the amount spent so far out of the total. This carries over even if your essence is harvested and you later recover your Neo Skills.
You can take this Neo Skill multiple times, each time pick another magic item worth 1500 GP or less or increasing the amount available for your class features and feats by 1500 GP.

That wording would make it possible to purchase stuff like expensive spell components/focus (up to the limit granted by the Neo ability) and spend monies on stuff like Riverside View's Death Due, to boost a class ability such as an Ancestral Weapon and my class/prc issue although I'm not sure if feats like Craft Wondrous Item and Pure Crafting have specific enough costs to warrant that use to pay for the raw materials needed to craft the stuff but the trait doesn't allow you to use the stuff crafted unless it is a mundane weapon or worth up to 10 GP anyway. A feat that allows you to spend X gp to activate an effect would work, though.

Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on October 26, 2017, 04:55:23 AM
Quote from: Anom
Quote from: Osle
So now Mao will be saving for retirement and family? :P
Probably sending all the monies to charities she'd have founded. Parum's Community Foundation or somesuch, helping orphans, improving the living conditions among Parum's poorer communities. Extended to the ship's colonies while she is part of the colonization project. Supporting what could be considered a very large family.
I almost feel tempted to give you bonus exp. :P

Quote from: Anom
Quote from: Osle
Although now I guess one may use Retro Tattoos for that. Tell you what, you come up with a nice wording for that and post here an updated  trait list to save me work, and I'll allow it.
Ah, true. Good idea. Here's something that could fit the general idea.

Quote
Retro Tattoo: Choose a magic item worth 1500 GP or less that's been printed in an official D&D book and doesn't have limited uses that don't recharge (a bag of tricks would be fine, a wand or scroll not). You gain the benefits of that items as if you had equipped it.
Alternatively you may use up to 1500 GP to pay for the expenses required for your class abilities or feats. The class ability/feat must specifically state the amount of wealth required to use it. Once this option is selected and used, it can only be exchanged with another Retro Tattoo Neo Skill and you must keep track of the amount spent so far out of the total. This carries over even if your essence is harvested and you later recover your Neo Skills.
You can take this Neo Skill multiple times, each time pick another magic item worth 1500 GP or less or increasing the amount available for your class features and feats by 1500 GP.

That wording would make it possible to purchase stuff like expensive spell components/focus (up to the limit granted by the Neo ability) and spend monies on stuff like Riverside View's Death Due, to boost a class ability such as an Ancestral Weapon and my class/prc issue although I'm not sure if feats like Craft Wondrous Item and Pure Crafting have specific enough costs to warrant that use to pay for the raw materials needed to craft the stuff but the trait doesn't allow you to use the stuff crafted unless it is a mundane weapon or worth up to 10 GP anyway. A feat that allows you to spend X gp to activate an effect would work, though.

And updated trait.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on October 28, 2017, 10:43:19 PM
Entropy Elemental
Coincidentally (or not?), this fits directly with Mao's opinion/theory on magic. The feat's special description states that the feat can be picked multiple times by lowering your max spirit points. Does this require having the feat at least once normally?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on October 28, 2017, 11:18:18 PM
We think alike sometimes then. Also open for extra suggestions on Entropy Elemental options.

No, anybody with spirit points can do it.

Also added a cooldown to recovering your max spirit, something I intended but forgot.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on October 29, 2017, 04:55:39 PM
Maybe something about about generating dead-magic zones. An aura or something that is generated whenever something specific happens. The world without magic progressively expending.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Fzzr on October 29, 2017, 05:01:52 PM
Just noticed: Prodigy Pilot and Psycho Pilot are missing from the index.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on October 30, 2017, 01:41:34 AM
I'm looking to go into Machinery Warrior from a real build. Can I use Machinery Weapons on arsenal weapons, or only in-builts? I assume in-builts only, but it's not super clear.
Similarly, how does Machinery Weapons interact with Twin-linked weapons?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on October 30, 2017, 05:04:33 AM
Maybe something about about generating dead-magic zones. An aura or something that is generated whenever something specific happens. The world without magic progressively expending.
Nice, I'll add something along those lines when I've got the time to write it down properly.

Just noticed: Prodigy Pilot and Psycho Pilot are missing from the index.
Fixed, thanks.

I'm looking to go into Machinery Warrior from a real build. Can I use Machinery Weapons on arsenal weapons, or only in-builts? I assume in-builts only, but it's not super clear.
Similarly, how does Machinery Weapons interact with Twin-linked weapons?
Clarified it's in-built only, added Twin-linked and X-linked clause.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on November 12, 2017, 07:26:41 PM
I'm really happy to see Module Pilot, but the fact that it doesn't let you combine into a humanoid mech bugs me. It seems like it'd be perfect for Getters, Aquarion, and even the Hyperion (who you're using one of the pilots of as a class pic), but you can't combine with it and get a regular mech, so...

Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Fzzr on November 12, 2017, 10:54:27 PM
So Module Pilot sacrifices maneuvers, lots of SP, and bonus feats for full Arsenal, tons of upgrade points, and perfect saves. Not sure about playing this as a main class, but this seems like almost the perfect cross-class or gestalt for Real- or BB-based classes. That's assuming the maneuver penalties only apply when actually in the Armored Module (or for BB, transformed into Armored Module mode) not when in a mecha/BB that has upgrade points from the Module applied. If the "this penalty persists if the Armored Module is combined with other mecha" clause applies to x-class/gestalt at all times, not super amazing, just a good option to get super upgrades/full arsenal/better saves for those who lack such.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on November 13, 2017, 12:27:49 AM
I'm really happy to see Module Pilot, but the fact that it doesn't let you combine into a humanoid mech bugs me. It seems like it'd be perfect for Getters, Aquarion, and even the Hyperion (who you're using one of the pilots of as a class pic), but you can't combine with it and get a regular mech, so...

I had indeed the Hyperion in mind. I now notice it indeed kinda has arms, but they're relatively tiny and not used for any of its attacks in constrast to the Astelion that can actually hold weapons. However I can see what you're getting at so allowed a combined form to be humanoid and no longer inflict a penalty on maneuver IL/PL.

So Module Pilot sacrifices maneuvers, lots of SP, and bonus feats for full Arsenal, tons of upgrade points, and perfect saves. Not sure about playing this as a main class, but this seems like almost the perfect cross-class or gestalt for Real- or BB-based classes. That's assuming the maneuver penalties only apply when actually in the Armored Module (or for BB, transformed into Armored Module mode) not when in a mecha/BB that has upgrade points from the Module applied. If the "this penalty persists if the Armored Module is combined with other mecha" clause applies to x-class/gestalt at all times, not super amazing, just a good option to get super upgrades/full arsenal/better saves for those who lack such.

It persists in gestalt and multiclass too, clarified. One of the main issues when designing this class was indeed to prevent it from making it the ultimate dip for others.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on November 18, 2017, 10:51:16 PM
So some half-random thoughts I've been musing about for quite some time and checking if anybody has any opinion about them.

Was thinking of a couple feats to allow Reals and Supers to get some out-of-combat utility.

Real Rank:

-Based on that as you belong to some kind of military organization you get some perks.
-Transporation of people and goods, including smuggling and the like.
-Request the service of non-pilot troops for scout/guarding/spying duty.
-Able to get close to important political figures, attend high-class events.
-Eventually can become the leader of your own country/empire.
-Demands spending increasingly amounts of time doing bureaucracy work.

Super Sidekicks:
-Based on that super pilots inevitably attract (other) exotic personalities.
-Connections with the underworld and secret crazy organizations.
-Get help from thieves, mad scientists, school bullies, unruly martial artists and whatnot.
-Miracolously saved during dangerous situations to fight another day.
-Eventually can pull a super project that ends up reshaping the fabric of reality in a space sector in some way.
-Demands spending increasingly amounts of time hanging out with your super sidekicks in bars/school/shopping/brawling/whinning and whatnot.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on November 18, 2017, 10:53:38 PM
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-Connections with the underworld and secret crazy organizations.

... the underworld? That seems a bit uncommon.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on November 18, 2017, 10:56:32 PM
Underworld in the sense of "common criminals, gamblers, cults" rather than "mystic hell".
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on November 19, 2017, 03:28:36 AM
I think I really like the ideas behind the Real Pilot one. Especially in regards to Katherine's future endeavors.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on November 19, 2017, 09:34:38 AM
Underworld in the sense of "common criminals, gamblers, cults" rather than "mystic hell".

No, I get what you meant.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on November 19, 2017, 09:35:34 PM
I notice most base classes have feats specifically for them. The Peace Princess doesn't have any at the moment. Some of the functions of the feat idea above kinda fits them.

For a those with the magic item-less trait, are they meant to not have access to most of the pilot uniforms, as they are more expensive than 10gp?

As for the feat idea, a sort-of-problem I can see with it is that many of those features can be acquired without it. Just as part of being in a given organization. While the feat at least guarantees those privileges, it may bring the notion that you aren't supposed to get those benefits without the feat. Or perhaps some frustration when you have stuff through the feat and another player as a similar perk for story reasons without any investment. Some of those benefits remind me of the faction membership thing in Complete Champion. Where your reputation score thingy/investment determines how important you are in a given organization and the benefits granted by your rank.
The notion that you must spend more and more time doing stuff other than adventuring may be tricky but I agree with it. But then I'm not sure about it as a feat.
I feel sort of the same way about Leadership, to be honest, so it could work if the mechanics are very clear as to what they give and what variables improve/penalize the results.





Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on November 20, 2017, 03:10:50 AM
After starting Super Robot Wars L been seeing alien lesbian robots Iczer 1-3, making a bunch of notes for a combat android class with developing synthetic soul for later.

Also added Real Rank's 1st draft. Ruler thingies will have to wait until I get some half-decent rules for mass mecha combat and governing and whatnot.

I notice most base classes have feats specifically for them. The Peace Princess doesn't have any at the moment. Some of the functions of the feat idea above kinda fits them.
Probably. Nobility and organized military kinda started being the same thing after all. Maybe I'll make Real Rank work from both classes.

For a those with the magic item-less trait, are they meant to not have access to most of the pilot uniforms, as they are more expensive than 10gp?
One step ahead of you, already updated the trait to allow you to burn your money in fancy pilot clothing. Although it seems I forgot to update it in the changelog, ups... :blush

As for the feat idea, a sort-of-problem I can see with it is that many of those features can be acquired without it. Just as part of being in a given organization. While the feat at least guarantees those privileges, it may bring the notion that you aren't supposed to get those benefits without the feat. Or perhaps some frustration when you have stuff through the feat and another player as a similar perk for story reasons without any investment. Some of those benefits remind me of the faction membership thing in Complete Champion. Where your reputation score thingy/investment determines how important you are in a given organization and the benefits granted by your rank.
The notion that you must spend more and more time doing stuff other than adventuring may be tricky but I agree with it. But then I'm not sure about it as a feat.
I feel sort of the same way about Leadership, to be honest, so it could work if the mechanics are very clear as to what they give and what variables improve/penalize the results.
And that's the difference between gaming the rules and gaming the DM.

For Real Rank I tried to keep the bonus objective so you can just get stuff with no need of story justification.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Raineh Daze on November 20, 2017, 10:26:52 AM
Is the "start new thread at page 50" limit still in place?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on December 19, 2017, 08:35:06 PM
Quote
Empty Machine: The Conscience Android can use her mecha’s own base HP, DR, Dodge, natural armor, movement speed(s), attack bonus (if any), save bonus (if any) and weapons instead of her own and also counts as having the same amount of energy instead of her own (including the basic 5 energy recovery per turn) as well as any special mecha properties such as transformation and barriers/coats/resistances/Regen/Reactor (do not count arsenal or benefits from others). She can also choose one in-built or arsenal weapon available to her mecha and replicate a normal-scale version on herself as a free action. This demands spending 8 hours of meditation outside her mecha and another 8 if she wishes to reverse the proccess.
Can we change only some of those stats or is it an everything or nothing conversion? The former is practical when some of the android's stats are better than his mecha's.
Also, the mecha weapons acquired are confusing a little. First you use them all instead of your own and then can also choose one. Unless this is meant to allow you to use all the mecha weapons instead of your own (including the one weapon replica chosen) when you choose to attack (a decision made every time an attack is done).
To note is that an android already gets the integrated weapon. Gives me ideas on how it may interact with it. Also, this ability is pretty badass.

Quote
Conscience Companion: At 2nd level the Conscience Android always gains the benefits of Friendship or Love as long as the respective target has a soul, is alive and whitin 100 mu, and double them if actually adjacent.
WOah. Double bonus? The benefits of a relationship bonus also includes the ability to do sync attacks. Is this allowing them to do sync attacks when within 100 mu?
Wonder why it shouldn't include the Rival and Devotion feats. Those are as intense in their own way.

Quote
Two with the Machine: At 3rd level the Conscience Android can have force one person that she has Friendship or Love to ride along her mecha. They can only use spirits and add their Cha mod to the mecha’s saves, attack and damage rolls. The Consicence Android still benefits from Love/Friendship while they’re both piloting the same mecha. As a swift action the Conscience Android may switch controls to them.
If the android wants to switch the controls back to them, they have to get the companion to relinquish it as a move action and then take them back as a move action of his own?

Quote
Synchro Conscience: At 5th level the Conscience Android can perform a Synchro Attack with her Conscience Companion while using Two with the Machine, plus benefit from any of her stances or other on-going self-buffs.
Technically, if they benefit from the relationship feat even when occupying the same mecha, they could already do synchro attacks by swapping the controls.

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Protective Conscience: At 6th level with 1 minute of work the Conscience Android can allow somebody else adjacent to benefit from Empty Machine. Only one other person can benefit from this at a time, but they can pass on the bonus to somebody else with another minute of work. The Conscience Android can void this bonus as an immediate action.
Another pretty kickass ability. Pretty handy for a follower/cohort and have them choose you.

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Traveling Conscience: At 8th level the Conscience Android gains telepathy 100 mu, or infinite range if towards a non-Soulless beings she has Friendship or Love to. As an immediate action you can instantly teleport yourself adjacent to anybody you have Friendship or Love to.
It is sort of okay. Odd to get so late compared to all the amazing stuff acquired before it.

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Synthetic Soul: At 10th level the Conscience Android gains a Soul, losing the Soulless feature (although she still qualifies for this prc). Once per day as a free action 1/hour she may increase her Cha by 10. During this duration she may use Limited Wish (or Wish if she has PL 18+) as a cha-based SLA with CL=PL, but after using this her Cha returns to normal. Either way she must still pay the exp cost if replicating any lasting effect.
Is this meant to say that once per day she can activate it and it lasts one hour?
Losing the Soulless feature this late is pretty weak compared to the stuff acquired from the get go. A little surprised it isn't acquired sooner considering its actual usefulness requires having a good Cha score and level 10 is pretty late to start building in that direction. The temporary +10 to Cha is nice but doesn't have to happen at the same time as Soulless is lost. Otherwise it is mostly useful in simply allowing you to make the loss of Soulless somewhat useful. It would have made more sense if the PRC made having a good Cha score useful. +10 to Cha by itself isn't all that great unless you spent your first 5 levels getting something with Cha-based abilities, but then you've been going through the following 10 levels without being able to use them because taking Soulless off took so long. The limited wish/wish is okay.

The PrC doesn't have Craft skills nor knowledge skills, if that was intentional.

I see that in battle the PrC seems to focus mostly in making relationship feat bonuses stronger. Because it grants little in the area of new offensive tricks, a dedicated character of that PrC would likely rely much on the companion to do those tricks using his own mecha while sharing the piloting around. Kind of feels like Pacific Rim but taking turns. It gives a twist to One With the Machine and sort of makes it less useful too. It relies a lot on having a partner in the same mecha to get benefits, and that partner is the one who needs a high Cha score to make it useful while your own Cha score is useless until the very end. The Conscience Android is thus all about having a good partner rather than having a soul. Optimally I think that PrC is best used on a cohort that would make the Cha-based master strong. Probably a Peace Princess with the ride-along ability to make the most of the control-swapping trick.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on December 20, 2017, 06:55:52 AM
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Empty Machine: The Conscience Android can use her mecha’s own base HP, DR, Dodge, natural armor, movement speed(s), attack bonus (if any), save bonus (if any) and weapons instead of her own and also counts as having the same amount of energy instead of her own (including the basic 5 energy recovery per turn) as well as any special mecha properties such as transformation and barriers/coats/resistances/Regen/Reactor (do not count arsenal or benefits from others). She can also choose one in-built or arsenal weapon available to her mecha and replicate a normal-scale version on herself as a free action. This demands spending 8 hours of meditation outside her mecha and another 8 if she wishes to reverse the proccess.
Can we change only some of those stats or is it an everything or nothing conversion? The former is practical when some of the android's stats are better than his mecha's.
Also, the mecha weapons acquired are confusing a little. First you use them all instead of your own and then can also choose one. Unless this is meant to allow you to use all the mecha weapons instead of your own (including the one weapon replica chosen) when you choose to attack (a decision made every time an attack is done).
To note is that an android already gets the integrated weapon. Gives me ideas on how it may interact with it.
Clarified, also only one new weapon, that yes will stack with integrated weapory in homage to Iczer's beam saber and beam bracelet.

Also, this ability is pretty badass.
:D

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Conscience Companion: At 2nd level the Conscience Android always gains the benefits of Friendship or Love as long as the respective target has a soul, is alive and whitin 100 mu, and double them if actually adjacent.
WOah. Double bonus? The benefits of a relationship bonus also includes the ability to do sync attacks. Is this allowing them to do sync attacks when within 100 mu?
Wonder why it shouldn't include the Rival and Devotion feats. Those are as intense in their own way.
Done.

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Two with the Machine: At 3rd level the Conscience Android can have force one person that she has Friendship or Love to ride along her mecha. They can only use spirits and add their Cha mod to the mecha’s saves, attack and damage rolls. The Consicence Android still benefits from Love/Friendship while they’re both piloting the same mecha. As a swift action the Conscience Android may switch controls to them.
If the android wants to switch the controls back to them, they have to get the companion to relinquish it as a move action and then take them back as a move action of his own?
Just another swift action, clarified.


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Synchro Conscience: At 5th level the Conscience Android can perform a Synchro Attack with her Conscience Companion while using Two with the Machine, plus benefit from any of her stances or other on-going self-buffs.
Technically, if they benefit from the relationship feat even when occupying the same mecha, they could already do synchro attacks by swapping the controls.
Clarified that the previous ability only counts for the raw numeric bonus.


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Protective Conscience: At 6th level with 1 minute of work the Conscience Android can allow somebody else adjacent to benefit from Empty Machine. Only one other person can benefit from this at a time, but they can pass on the bonus to somebody else with another minute of work. The Conscience Android can void this bonus as an immediate action.
Another pretty kickass ability. Pretty handy for a follower/cohort and have them choose you.
Hmm, yes it's kinda too minionish, made it non-minion accessible on the prerequisites.

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Traveling Conscience: At 8th level the Conscience Android gains telepathy 100 mu, or infinite range if towards a non-Soulless beings she has Friendship or Love to. As an immediate action you can instantly teleport yourself adjacent to anybody you have Friendship or Love to.
It is sort of okay. Odd to get so late compared to all the amazing stuff acquired before it.
Was kinda running out of ideas by then to be honest, suggestions welcome. :P


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Synthetic Soul: At 10th level the Conscience Android gains a Soul, losing the Soulless feature (although she still qualifies for this prc). Once per day as a free action 1/hour she may increase her Cha by 10. During this duration she may use Limited Wish (or Wish if she has PL 18+) as a cha-based SLA with CL=PL, but after using this her Cha returns to normal. Either way she must still pay the exp cost if replicating any lasting effect.
Is this meant to say that once per day she can activate it and it lasts one hour?
Losing the Soulless feature this late is pretty weak compared to the stuff acquired from the get go. A little surprised it isn't acquired sooner considering its actual usefulness requires having a good Cha score and level 10 is pretty late to start building in that direction. The temporary +10 to Cha is nice but doesn't have to happen at the same time as Soulless is lost. Otherwise it is mostly useful in simply allowing you to make the loss of Soulless somewhat useful. It would have made more sense if the PRC made having a good Cha score useful. +10 to Cha by itself isn't all that great unless you spent your first 5 levels getting something with Cha-based abilities, but then you've been going through the following 10 levels without being able to use them because taking Soulless off took so long. The limited wish/wish is okay.

The PrC doesn't have Craft skills nor knowledge skills, if that was intentional.
Fixed typos and added ability to add Cha bonus to any 1d20 roll per round that ignores auto-fail on a 1, plus increasing crit range if you use it to buff attack.

I see that in battle the PrC seems to focus mostly in making relationship feat bonuses stronger. Because it grants little in the area of new offensive tricks, a dedicated character of that PrC would likely rely much on the companion to do those tricks using his own mecha while sharing the piloting around. Kind of feels like Pacific Rim but taking turns. It gives a twist to One With the Machine and sort of makes it less useful too. It relies a lot on having a partner in the same mecha to get benefits, and that partner is the one who needs a high Cha score to make it useful while your own Cha score is useless until the very end. The Conscience Android is thus all about having a good partner rather than having a soul. Optimally I think that PrC is best used on a cohort that would make the Cha-based master strong. Probably a Peace Princess with the ride-along ability to make the most of the control-swapping trick.
Well the idea was that by interacting close to somebody with a soul, the Conscience android eventually develops one of her own. Learn directly from the meatbags.

Doubling the raw numbers of your relationship feats isn't too shabby either.

The problem with adding abilities that work out of the conscience android's own charisma early on is that this is still a prc that you can only take at 5th and would be kinda weird to force androids to invest in the iconic dump stat in their first 4 levels.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on December 20, 2017, 07:43:06 AM
Could take care of that problem by making it a weird PrC like Human/Dwarf/etc Paragon, which can be taken even at level 1. Or grant access to Cha usage early on even without having an actual Soul. Much like how every other soulless creatures can without having one. Or make it progressive such as having access to only one ability, then two then all of them or something like that. Or all from the get go but weaker, like half the regular bonus.

Traveling Conscience: I'll think of something though I haven't watched the inspiring material.

Perhaps the Cha to crit range is too strong. You now definitely want to build Cha at the very end since it'd more or less guarantee a crit per round and then you'd go for the highest crit multiplier.

Thanks for the swift patch! Highly considering this one.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on December 20, 2017, 09:25:56 AM
I'll think about your suggestions, but for now out of curiosity, exactly which creatures in D&D specifically don't have a soul? Elementals/outsiders are their own soul, undead are corrupted/trapped souls, and regular constructs are powered up by some sort of elemental inside them, meaning they do have a soul too.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on December 20, 2017, 04:47:10 PM
I'll think about your suggestions, but for now out of curiosity, exactly which creatures in D&D specifically don't have a soul?
Any new-type Construct or Undead.

In order for a Construct/Undead to have a soul the original creature must have one which typically applies to Templated Constructs/Undead or PAO tricks opposed to default stateblocks of invented creatures. A cool fyi is Ghost is a soul-Template while Zombie is a body-Template, it's actually possible for a Ghost to animate their corpse.

Elemental/Outsiders use a compound soul deal, instead of possessing a unique god-granted soul they are instead produced from Planar energies and like in the case of an Elemental they don't really have a biological body but rather are an elemental force in a condensed shape. They do have souls, but uniquely after an unknown amount of time after death the soul it's self fades away rather than having an eternal afterlife.

Warforged them selves are a very undefined exception to things. There is no way to create a Woeforged and in lore House Cannith has brought Warforged back from death but no Warforged has ever said anything about an afterlife. Mechanically, per Savage Species no Construct can become an Undead and True Resurrection can bring golems back, but as far as a not knowing the afterlife. Well in the default cosmology, which was written before Warforged were a thing, they simply don't. However the Petitioner Template, the template souls take on in their afterlife, does have a noted rule 0 inclusion for the DM to make anyone into one which can give your Androids an afterlife if you like.

You can also apply the same thought, maybe, on biological clones. Like in your SRW game, is the cloned Aryk souless? Can they technologically print new souls as needed or since you have an uber deity of negative energy from a franchise that also has an uber deity of positive energy, is soul creation a power they alone possess and clones are either auto-awarded one or have to embark on a quest to be worthy of obtaining one?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on December 20, 2017, 06:47:49 PM
^Quite so.
Many constructs exist because an elemental or other spirit is animating it. But not all. Some seem to require special conditions to get the animation to start and some like the animated objects and the boguns are simply animated with magic. So it is just a force of some kind that animates them. Even those animated with an elemental may not necessarily be the actual elemental consciousness within a new body but a new being using the elemental to power itself.

But creatures that can use their Charisma normally do not necessarily have a soul. It just means they can tell the difference between themselves and other creatures. Being subject to negative levels is often closer to having a soul.

Here's something on artificiality that can be useful for other stuff.
Quote from: WotC
Artificial Beings: An object animated with the animate object spell is a construct. So are most creatures that are built through some artificial means rather than bred, cloned, sprouted, or created through any natural process.

Not all artificial creatures are constructs. Spells such as animate dead and create undead produce undead creatures, not constructs. The simulacrum spell creates a duplicate of some other creature and the duplicate has the same creature type as the original. In general, a construct is a unique kind of creature, not a previously existing creature brought back from death or an attempt to copy another creature. A construct also usually is built up, piece by piece (except in the case of an animated object) from inert materials.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on December 20, 2017, 07:01:38 PM
I asked for specific examples, and neither of those are, while there's several examples of the contrary:
-"New type" undead like zombies have the interesting effect of blocking bringing the creature back to life, including effects that create you a new body like reincarnation. The only logical explanation is that such undead trap the body's original soul, probably as their eternal energy source. Only by destroying the zombie can that creature come back to life in a new body. And that's why animate dead is Evil while animate objects (just making bodies move) and enervation (negative energy beam ho) are not.
-Constructs can't be turned into undead indeed. Just like elementals. Even specimens such as a flesh golem can't be zombified despite being perfectly fine flesh, because the original soul is long gone, replaced instead by an elemental soul, and those are no good for necromancy. You simply cannot make a zombie of a being with an elemental soul.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on December 21, 2017, 12:18:07 AM
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-"New type" undead like zombies have the interesting effect of blocking bringing the creature back to life, including effects that create you a new body like reincarnation. The only logical explanation is that such undead trap the body's original soul, probably as their eternal energy source. Only by destroying the zombie can that creature come back to life in a new body. And that's why animate dead is Evil while animate objects (just making bodies move) and enervation (negative energy beam ho) are not
That's pretty much what happens indeed. The soul is trapped into the animated body. Though that may not mean that the Zombie, even if awakened and getting a personality of its own, would be using that soul as its own for a potential afterlife.

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-Constructs can't be turned into undead indeed. Just like elementals. Even specimens such as a flesh golem can't be zombified despite being perfectly fine flesh, because the original soul is long gone, replaced instead by an elemental soul, and those are no good for necromancy. You simply cannot make a zombie of a being with an elemental soul.
Not necessarily true. A construct, flesh golem included (they actually need a casting of animated dead for the creation), can technically be turned into a zombie. All it needs is a skeletal system as part of its construction. Because apparently that's needed for the zombification process to work. As would any construct with some kind of skeleton (could be one made of metal?)
Even an elemental can be turned into a necromental. Constructs can be turned into undead creature bu many spawn-based undeadifications require the humanoid type.

As for a specific examples, I did mention the animated object and the bogun, who are created with magic as their animating force. Otherwise, the first construct I came upon in the MM4 that isn't mindless is the Clockwork Mender. A construct that builds more of itself on Mechanus and apparently needs something about the plane of Mechanus to start its animation process. It doesn't need some kind of spirit and they still work outside of Mechanus (but don't reproduce). Could be interpreted as them getting a "soul" from Mechanus, I guess, but it is a mystery.
In the regular MM there are the Inevitables that are sentient constructs.
Quote from: wiki
Inevitables are built and programmed in automated factories called creche-forges; one of them, mentioned in the Manual of the Planes, is called Neumannus (a reference to Von Neumann machines). Every type of inevitable is designed to enforce a particular type of universal law and will pursue its objective at any cost. In order to fulfill their tasks, they may ally themselves with other creatures or, if necessary, sacrifice themselves.
After they complete a mission, they go in search of other transgressors, some of whom they may have encountered while on previous missions. Unlike other constructs, they may learn from experience and may even develop individual personalities over time. Eventually, they are called back to Mechanus, where their personalities and knowledge are erased so they can begin anew.


As for the Conscious Android, I thought it could get a bonus Relationship feat toward anyone it already has a relationship feat for. Could get bonus effects depending on the relationship type.
Perhaps it could allow one to take an immediate action to catch the companion's escape pod when the mecha it occupies is destroyed. Can then choose to have him or her join your cockpit.
While using Two with the Machine, could instead choose to have the loved one take your escape pod if your mecha is destroyed while you are piloting it. Since there is normally only one.
If you already have 3 relationship feats for the companion, may work as an effective 4th pick or allow a retrain. Or give the bonus effect for having all feats.

Examples:
Love; Once per round, when the loved one uses an ability that heals you, improves your stats (must not be one you were already benefiting from) or cures you from a negative effect, you heal by 10% of the loved one's maximum hit points.
Friendship; When making a synchro attack, you may make an additional basic attack with a non-heavy weapon and take a -5 penalty on the attack roll.
Rival; Whenever you and your rival are both attacked by the same opponent within the same round, you may roll an opposed level check. At the beginning of his next turn, the winner adds the result to his DR against attacks from that opponent for one turn.
Devotion; If the one you are devoted to is damaged more than once by the same opponent within the same round, you may make one basic attack against that opponent with a non-heavy weapon.

Could also add more uses per hour/day for the relationship feats. Since it already heavily encourages the character to max the relationship feat (and they don't get bonus pilot feats), could keep on making them better at what they do.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on December 21, 2017, 02:32:32 AM
Created by magic =/= soulless. In particular all the D&D cosmologies where humanoids are created by something else. Heck, it's just an epic spell to create a new species. When I say specific, I do mean it specifically saying not having a soul, since things like humans and elves don't actually say they have a soul, thus the default state is D&D creatures having them. Case in point, Trap the Soul is a spell that works on everything non-homebrew. Undead, constructs, all valid targets.

And half the point of androids is precisely that they're not magic dolls, but actually cold machines that even need fuel and eventually do break down.

Also in case you didn't notice, for years I've been running an online campaign where one of the main plot points is that Inevitables have souls too. And I don't plan to set said campaign on fire along the android and conscious android.

Anyway added some buffs to Traveling companion.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on December 21, 2017, 11:40:55 AM
I asked for specific examples, and neither of those are, while there's several examples of the contrary:
Confusion isn't an example. The Undead Type doesn't trap souls. Like there is nothing in the rules that says as long as a Hulking Corpse exists someone cannot be resurrected plus you can actually cast Raise Dead on a Zombie's severed hand (since it becomes an object at that point).

Also Undead are, very specifically, powered by Negative Energy. Their optional external energy intake according to Libris Mortis is consuming flesh and draining levels/abilities. But Undead are solely evil not because they are a negative aspect, it's because they "represent a mockery of life and a violation of the natural order of life and death"BoED & "Unliving corpses—corrupt mockeries of life and purity—are inherently evil."BoVD which is a pretty consistent theme.

But no, magic creation isn't inherently soulless. Rather is takes a ton of energy to manipulate the soul, like a Simulacrum is souless but an Eidolon is not even through they are both duplicates of the caster. The Life Seed can specifically create and bestow souls, but that requires epic access and falls within the realm of god-like power.

Case in point, Trap the Soul is a spell that works on everything non-homebrew. Undead, constructs, all valid targets.
Trap the Soul imprisons the body which is why it works on Constructs & Undead. But trapping Zombie #38,486 has no affect on Joe McThorHammer even if Joe's corpse (an object with no soul) was animated into Zombie #38,486 and I think that's the part you're really failing to grasp here.

Also Inevitables don't have souls, they are Constructs.  :P
D&D actually has a sub classification of monsters called Inevitable, but I think you are talking about the Dark Falz which is a decent example of D&D's Outsider Type, specially when you consider how the character-thing varies between games. Falz, much like an Outsider, is an independent and sentient being partially made out of negative planar energy. It can be killed or resurrected but if destroyed and left dead for too long it fades away to nothing. A new being with a different personality, design, and even plan to achieve it's inherited motivation can be spun out and may even take on the name of "Falz".
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on December 21, 2017, 06:44:19 PM
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Case in point, Trap the Soul is a spell that works on everything non-homebrew. Undead, constructs, all valid targets.
Despite the name, trap the soul does not only affect the soul. It also traps the creature's entire body, which even undead/constructs have (I see Soro already pointed it out). Imprison the Soul, Magic Jar and Soul Bind do not work on constructs, however, as they are immune to necromantic effects.
They are also immune to energy drain by default, which is essentially an attack upon a creature's life force.

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When I say specific, I do mean it specifically saying not having a soul, since things like humans and elves don't actually say they have a soul, thus the default state is D&D creatures having them.
They were actually generalized indeed. In Complete Divine (p.125)
Quote from: CDiv
"Some creature types don't have souls and simply cease to exist when they die. Constructs just fall apart, for example. Undead creatures likewise cease to exist, although destroying an undead creature sometimes frees a soul trapped within it.

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And I don't plan to set said campaign on fire along the android and conscious android.
Why should you feel threatened by constructs not having souls by default? If you want your Inevitables to have a soul in your campaign, they just do. Whatever the official material says.

The updated Traveling Conscience ability got pretty big. Perhaps giving increased melee reach is to good. The increase per Cha bonus is huge. The speed increase for Love maybe a bit too big as well.
Notice a thing about Two with the Machine; if the android is using one with the machine, and then swaps the controls. Ending one with the machine normally takes a fullround action but it only takes effect while the android is piloting it. Does this mean that if the android gives control to the companion, the mecha returns to its regular HP and then back to one with the machine's hit points once the android takes the wheel again?

There is no description on choosing a Conscience Companion. Is any creature with a soul for which the android has a relationship feat automatically a Conscience Companion?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on December 21, 2017, 07:29:32 PM
Quote
Case in point, Trap the Soul is a spell that works on everything non-homebrew. Undead, constructs, all valid targets.
Despite the name, trap the soul does not only affect the soul. It also traps the creature's entire body, which even undead/constructs have.
Ghosts and wraiths and shadows have bodies now? Fascinating.

Imprison the Soul, Magic Jar and Soul Bind do not work on constructs, however, as they are immune to necromantic effects.
They are also immune to energy drain by default, which is essentially an attack upon a creature's life force.
Those spells also work on constructs. Just cast humanoid essence on them first.

Unless you want to claim the spell grants them a new soul, in which case I must ask if you consider a soul that light of a matter that you can just create new ones willy-nilly with 4th level spells? Gotta wonder why necromancers bother so much to go hunting them down then when you're now claiming you can just grant souls to any piece of rock and call it a day.

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When I say specific, I do mean it specifically saying not having a soul, since things like humans and elves don't actually say they have a soul, thus the default state is D&D creatures having them.
They were actually generalized indeed. In Complete Divine (p.125)
Quote from: CDiv
"Some creature types don't have souls and simply cease to exist when they die. Constructs just fall apart, for example. Undead creatures likewise cease to exist, although destroying an undead creature sometimes frees a soul trapped within it.
Whoever wrote that had no idea what they were talking about since undeads like ghosts, liches and vampires do keep coming back for more. Also half-golems lose their souls now?

Plus would make humanoid essence impossible to work.

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And I don't plan to set said campaign on fire along the android and conscious android.
Why should you feel threatened by constructs not having souls by default? If you want your Inevitables to have a soul in your campaign, they just do. Whatever the official material says.
Well, besides you now claiming that several official spells suddenly never work in any situation, I also happen to like to be able to use core monsters such as vampires, ghosts, liches, etc.

Also ever paused to look at the subofrum this is on?
"Campaign Settings and World-Building"

Oh my, look at that! This is also another of my campaign settings! I know some people have trouble realizing that and think they can shove anything they want, but I would've expected better from you Anomander. So with all due respect you can take your contradictory passages from splatbooks somewhere else.

EDIT: And I'm locking this thread since I've had enough of burning hate for this year. If anybody wants to talk about any specific class there's the respective threads just for that. If anybody wants to complain more about how they see me and my work as horrible, you can wait until after new year. It's almost Christmas, go spend some time with your family and friends instead of trying to destroy this.

EDIT EDIT: And thread re-oened. Let's hope that if it gets used, it's actually used for srwd20 general discussion this time, with specific questions going to the respective threads.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on December 21, 2017, 07:44:04 PM
Quote
Ghosts and wraiths and shadows have bodies now? Fascinating.
Yes. Incorporeal bodies. I remember reading those exact words.

Quote
Those spells also work on constructs. Just cast humanoid essence on them first.
Unless you want to claim the spell grants them a new soul, in which case I must ask if you consider a soul that light of a matter that you can just create new ones willy-nilly with 4th level spells? Gotta wonder why necromancers bother so much to go hunting them down then when you're now claiming you can just grant souls to any piece of rock and call it a day.
You can interpret Humanoid Essence as you will. I'm not extrapolating, just reading what is written. Perhaps it gives one for the duration of the spell.

Quote
Whoever wrote that had no idea what they were talking about since undeads like ghosts, liches and vampires do keep coming back for more. Also half-golems lose their souls now?
Plus would make humanoid essence impossible to work.
There's more further after that passage. It even details the cases of specific kinds of undead. You're the one who asked for official confirmation. That section may well be the most in-depth one that details the subject of souls. The BoVD gives them some kind of worth but doesn't detail them much.

Quote
Quote
Why should you feel threatened by constructs not having souls by default? If you want your Inevitables to have a soul in your campaign, they just do. Whatever the official material says.
Also ever paused to look at the subofrum this is on?
"Campaign Settings and World-Building"
Oh my, look at that! This is also another of my campaign settings! I know some people have trouble realizing that and think they can shove anything they want, but I would've expected better from you Anomander. So with all due respect you can take your contradictory passages from splatbooks somewhere else.
Yes, that is exactly what I'm saying. It is your campaign and you can rule your inevitable to have souls if you want. I'm not sure why you're implying that I'm suggesting anything but. You're the one who asked me here for official confirmation on the nature of certain creatures not having souls by default. Don't blame me for giving you one. >_>

Anyway. The updated Traveling Conscience ability got pretty big. Perhaps giving increased melee reach is to good. The increase per Cha bonus is huge. The speed increase for Love maybe a bit too big as well.
Notice a thing about Two with the Machine; if the android is using one with the machine, and then swaps the controls. Ending one with the machine normally takes a fullround action but it only takes effect while the android is piloting it. Does this mean that if the android gives control to the companion, the mecha returns to its regular HP and then back to one with the machine's hit points once the android takes the wheel again?

There is no description on choosing a Conscience Companion. Is any creature with a soul for which the android has a relationship feat automatically a Conscience Companion?
For Empty Machine, can the android change only some of those stats or is it an everything or nothing conversion? The former is practical when some of the android's stats are better than his mecha's.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on January 20, 2018, 09:23:25 AM
Imprison the Soul, Magic Jar and Soul Bind do not work on constructs, however, as they are immune to necromantic effects.
They are also immune to energy drain by default, which is essentially an attack upon a creature's life force.
Those spells also work on constructs. Just cast humanoid essence on them first.
Not really. Greater Humanoid Essence (a 7th level spell, not 4th) temporarily changes their Type but it never says they obtain an immortal soul. You should try reading your examples to see if they actually support you, or even sound anything like what you try to use them as, first imho. Anyway, Magic Jar & Soul Bind interact with souls and they don't actually state they don't work on Constructs rather your typical Construct is soulless and the lack of interaction is drawn from that.

And as noted before a Construct/Undead can have a soul if the original creature had one which typically applies to Templated Constructs/Undead and PAO-like tricks. As an example, if a Human chooses to stores his "life force", as in his soul, in a phylactery he becomes a Lich. His body is an Undead Creature and it's "life force", as in energy source like calories or an electrical storage, is powered by Negative Energy. Context matters, through I'm suspicious that you are intentionally trying to create ambiguity for support more than this is about you not understanding the difference given the recent posts.

You wanted an official answer to validate your opinion, don't take it out on us if you're not getting what you want.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on January 20, 2018, 06:50:30 PM
Not really. Greater Humanoid Essence (a 7th level spell, not 4th) temporarily changes their Type but it never says they obtain an immortal soul. You should try reading your examples to see if they actually support you, or even sound anything like what you try to use them as, first imho. Anyway, Magic Jar & Soul Bind interact with souls and they don't actually state they don't work on Constructs rather your typical Construct is soulless and the lack of interaction is drawn from that.
Hey, check out Complete Divine:

Quote
The soul is beyod magic's power to detect or affect.

And as noted before a Construct/Undead can have a soul if the original creature had one which typically applies to Templated Constructs/Undead and PAO-like tricks. As an example, if a Human chooses to stores his "life force", as in his soul, in a phylactery he becomes a Lich.
Hahaha really read Complete Divine:
Quote
liches are characters who voluntarily transformed themselves into undead, trapping their souls in skeletal bodies.


Context matters, through I'm suspicious that you are intentionally trying to create ambiguity for support more than this is about you not understanding the difference given the recent posts.
It's a body. It has a soul inside. What else do you need?

You wanted an official answer to validate your opinion, don't take it out on us if you're not getting what you want.
And you waited over one month just to say that? Don't you really have anything better to do? You really do hate me that much.

Either way my point still stands. Complete Divine's text on this matter is pure shit, self-contradicting itself and other sources at virtually every step (like claiming souls can't be affected by magic and then talks about Trap the Soul), and you can claim virtually anything you want from it. 

So at best you can claim it's open to interpretation. And I've already made my interpretation pretty clear, and I also made it clear I don't care about your interepretation, so please go spam somewhere else.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on January 22, 2018, 04:59:17 PM
Hmm, I can fix your post here.
Context matters, through I'm suspicious that you are intentionally trying to create ambiguity for support more than this is about you not understanding the difference given the recent posts.
Challenge accepted!
For example,
Quote from: This is also in Complete Divine and on the same page
Some creature types don’t have souls and simply cease to exist when they die. Constructs just fall apart, for example. Undead creatures likewise cease to exist, although destroying an undead creature sometimes frees a soul trapped within it (as described below).
There is nothing to claim that's open to interpretation and if you can stop being thick headed and have a rational discussion that'd be great.

Like quoting that section in context and how it discusses "the dead character", a direct reference not to anything you can think of but from the one the last paragraph spoke of. Which is talking about how a soul from a dead character lingers before departing, and how a soul isn't incorpereal and it isn't even a creature. If things like Trap The Soul and Revivify targets a creature, how do they hit something that's not a creature? The answer is simple, they don't, and it's as easy as that. It's not a hard concept to wrap your head around either.

And no I didn't wait a month for much of anything and I'd call you conceited but I think you'd take it as a compliment. No the fact of the matter is when Andomander edited the last post in the thread is threw up the new icon flagging it for me to notice. Unfortunately for your little bubble through is your most active participate in this discussion took nineteen days to even notice that you were waiting for more replies.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on January 22, 2018, 11:20:30 PM
Added Mercy Spirit and Soul System feat.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on January 26, 2018, 12:53:23 AM
I'ma be honest here, reading that Soul Soldier class ya just posted feels very much like it was written out of spite because of this above conversation in here -_-'

Ignoring that for a moment, however, Soul Soldier seems like a very pointless class....Mechanically speaking; flavor text aside. I mean, it could certainly work for simple throwaway things like NPCs, it looks great for that. But...that's all. *shrugs*
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on January 26, 2018, 01:18:44 AM
I'ma be honest here, reading that Soul Soldier class ya just posted feels very much like it was written out of spite because of this above conversation in here -_-'
When life gives you spite, it's better to make a class out of it instead of wasting another second in a pointless conversation.

Ignoring that for a moment, however, Soul Soldier seems like a very pointless class....Mechanically speaking; flavor text aside. I mean, it could certainly work for simple throwaway things like NPCs, it looks great for that. But...that's all. *shrugs*
Oh yes I'll be getting some use out of it for NPCs.  :plotting
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on January 26, 2018, 09:32:05 AM
I'm fine with it though it seems to be accessible maybe a level or two too early.

Quote
Soul Soldier seems like a very pointless class....Mechanically speaking
What? How so? Unless perhaps being caught in a Silence area prevents you from crying out and shuts down all your class abilities, this one seems more than viable.
I know where I'm going after the 10th Conscious Android level is acquired to get the soul prerequisite.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on January 26, 2018, 10:32:12 AM
I'ma be honest here, reading that Soul Soldier class ya just posted feels very much like it was written out of spite because of this above conversation in here -_-'
That's how he writes most of his homebrew through, how did you make it this far without realizing it?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on March 01, 2018, 07:26:29 PM
So something I have been thinking about for some time and brought forward recently in a PM is overhauling/expanding Area weapon property option. The basic plan would be that instead of just Area there would be something like Area(line), Area (cone) and Area (burst X), the last one the burst being in the point of impact with radius X. The line would be up to range increment as well as the cone, or maybe cone only up to half basic range increment.

Anybody has thoughts on that?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on March 04, 2018, 02:34:39 PM
So something I have been thinking about for some time and brought forward recently in a PM is overhauling/expanding Area weapon property option. The basic plan would be that instead of just Area there would be something like Area(line), Area (cone) and Area (burst X), the last one the burst being in the point of impact with radius X. The line would be up to range increment as well as the cone, or maybe cone only up to half basic range increment.

Anybody has thoughts on that?

This sounds like an excellent idea. It's been bugging me that the only MAP options in this are lines, when they're so varied in SRW. I'd really like for there to be an option to have a HiMAT Full Burst or something, for example
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: SorO_Lost on March 04, 2018, 05:58:18 PM
Anybody has thoughts on that?
It's pretty much the next logical step and just part of that massive list of uncompleted stuff you haven't gotten around to. I reserved cones for special weapons in the Magitech stuff and lines & radiation damage were going to be for beams but I'm ridiculously slow on putting ideas into text. Plus like a kid with ADHD I've gone from that to Red Mage to Rituals to Power to Magicka and probably a dozen misc Character builds in between as far as the D&D front goes.

You know, I'm following the same trend I did in another game series too. Anyway, don't just make guns with cones, make awesome weapons. Sell the flavor and vary the theme, not assloads of dice with a title slapped over it.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on March 04, 2018, 07:00:04 PM
So something I have been thinking about for some time and brought forward recently in a PM is overhauling/expanding Area weapon property option. The basic plan would be that instead of just Area there would be something like Area(line), Area (cone) and Area (burst X), the last one the burst being in the point of impact with radius X. The line would be up to range increment as well as the cone, or maybe cone only up to half basic range increment.

Anybody has thoughts on that?

This sounds like an excellent idea. It's been bugging me that the only MAP options in this are lines, when they're so varied in SRW. I'd really like for there to be an option to have a HiMAT Full Burst or something, for example

I'll get around that later on then. But the problem with the more complex patterns that sometimes appear in SRW is that I need some nomenclature that can easily fit in a text line.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on March 05, 2018, 02:31:46 AM
Righto updated Index, Arsenal, Real/Super Pilot and Support Staff with the new Area rules.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Anomander on March 06, 2018, 07:58:11 AM
Questions on this Area change.
-Is the size adjustable? (say, can the Explosion area be made smaller than its maximum radius?)
-Should the Explosion type's radius of effect also be limited in distance rather than only by the radius? As is the area can affect anything within its maximum range increments, and a bit beyond since only the center of the area must be within range.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on March 07, 2018, 03:52:24 AM
-No.
-Good question, something I was wondering myself. Since you raised the question, reduced it to up to two range increments which is what Rushing Dandy did (and I updated the feat now too).
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on March 14, 2018, 03:26:19 PM
Righto, something I guess I owe Anomander for quite some time:

mecha engineer overview:

-The mecha prototype progression seems to have some typos with "The grade level and Arsenal options available increase to 2 at a class level of 4; to 2 at level 7; 3 at level 10, 4 at level 13; 5 at level 16 and " ending right there. So increases from grade 2 to grade 2 between 4 and 7 and nothing after 16? :psyduck
-Prototypes be real cheap. Like, you can get the lower ones for cheaper than a suit of fullplate. What raw materials are you using that 100 gp will allow you to build a 30 feet tall mecha? And seems like you can get them moving on their own since they have their own stats, and there doesn't seem to be any control cap. That's some of the cheapest minionmancy I ever saw to be honest.
-So puny creatures can pilot your foam mechas, but the super talented pilot cannot? Unless they're your slave then it's ok. Honestly that just feels tacked. If anything I would suggest for replacing it with your foam mechas caping the limits of the pilot. Like you may be a super pilot with 20 Bab and 18s on all stats, but the foam mecha just has too much lag so they'll count as 1 Bab and 12 on all stats.
-It's understandable why there seems to be a love for "real" prototypes. Because the "lose when hit by critical" becomes meaningless if you don't get hit at all, so load up on AC acessories and you'll be easily pulling ahead of any real pilot. Trying to make a tanky prototype in the other hand would be a waste of resources so I guess that's why super pilot still gets played when mecha engineer is available.
-You can use prototype's Bab whitout losing anything, so low level parties are better off ditching their machines and buying from a lv.20 mecha engineer.
-Mecha Engineers also get the best cohorts because only they can take mecha engineers as cohorts. Sure, win more. In the other hand no exception for followers, and even a low level mecha engineer is pretty brutal.
-Any two disciplines of your choice choice. Besides top leaders and merchants, mecha engineers are also the best martial artists among pilots. Sure stances cost hardpoints, but you already have more hardpoints than a full party of super pilots.
-Sapper has a constant DC of 25 since mecha do not have effective HD. Also sure, high level mecha battles should be about just hacking open their cockpits in one round ignoring all the mecha's defenses and killing the squishy pilot inside. Kinda implied it only works on unattended mechas, should clarify about that.
-Just noticed now, but since a)you can take mecha engineers as followers and b) they always fit inside a mecha and can take actions then the only winning move is to cram your mecha with an orgy of mecha engineers.
-Hook lacks HP to be sundered (and then what, you lose it forever?)
-More hardpoints. More AC and assorted defensive abilities. Less crits taken.
-Joke's on you making Ablative Plates obsolete since Ablative Plates no longer are an arsenal option.
-That's some really video-gamey radar. I'm sure DMs will be delighted for being forced to declare where every enemy is looking at every round. Also pierces every disguise and any lie ever to find out who's an enemy or ally so mecha engineers now best diplomats, security agents and spies too.
-Even more hardpoints. I'm not sure if there's enough arsenal options to fill all of them but sure go ahead.
-Underclocking's penalty may mean something if you didn't have a legion of mecha engineers crammed inside that can patch all status conditions every turn too.
-Integrated Technology and Mecha specialist are yet more of those abilities where it's screaming for minion abuse or simply hiring NPCs to grant you the benefits forever.

A lot of the above problems could be easily prevented if you simply flat out declare all mecha engineers won't become cohorts/followers no matter what nor hire themselves for cheap one-time jobs or something, otherwise it's just screaming for mecha engineer 24/7 orgies inside mechas. Or something that each mecha can only be tampered by one mecha engineer at a time. Also why all the weird hardpoint formulas? Couldn't you just go "get one extra hardpoint stacking with previous extra hardpoints, move on"?

Sorry for any abrasiveness but again I just disliked the concept from start, although all in all seems like a nice* dedicated job and if the above issues are taken care off and I would even add it to the main index. Now to see if I can catch some sleep.

*EDIT: Scratch that, I just did some deeper math and your class at 20 is getting some 17 whooping acessories with no need of touching their starting 30 arsenal. That's completely insane, and even more when they have several abilities that make the arsenal options obscene all around. Even assuming that you need to spend 6 in lower level stuff (and still plenty of strong stuff down there), that's still 11 tier VII arsenals.

The hardpoint spam madness need to go too. Hardpoints were designed assuming you only get an handful at best. There's no sane way to balance something getting triple that, even less when they're boosting the arsenals and you barely even started to scratch the class boosts.

EDIT EDIT-Your main feat also has some issues. The whole thing where you trade spirit points for arsenal space and pseudo-acessories makes the feat nothing short of an auto-take for every pilot and their mother because spirit points scale up with level while arsenal/hardpoints do not (except for the master race engineer, but that one gets the feat for free anyway).
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Fzzr on March 24, 2018, 05:53:01 PM
Heads up: Soul Soldier is missing from the index of PRCs
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on March 24, 2018, 10:22:41 PM
Thanks, added.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Fzzr on March 26, 2018, 02:05:18 AM
It looks like you accidentally added it to the Mechas list instead of the Prestige Classes list in the index.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on March 26, 2018, 09:00:05 AM
Ups, should be fixed now. :blush
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on March 30, 2018, 07:50:40 AM
Half-random Thoughts:

I know I said I didn't want to do a "on foot dudes can fight mecha" years ago, but after finishing the first Xenoblade Chronicles recently I feel like doing a bunch of classes based on that. Or maybe one class with multiple paths.

They would have a "Monado Vow" or something where they can never pilot mechas, although they can ride stuff piloted by others for transportation.

The classe(s) would copycat be inspired on Xenoblade Chronicles main members.

Monado Champion-Dude with energy sword that can extend to absurd ranges, also can throw buffs while hitting enemies. Also agile fighter with some maneuvers/sneak attack, kinda jack of all trades all around.

Monado Phalanx-Shield heavy armor dude. Super tough, specialized in taking hits meant for other. Can hit hard, but not as agile as Monado Heir.

Monado Medic-SNIPER HEALER! Can shoot people so hard it heals them and leaves them tougher than before. Divine casting with gun synergy.

Monado Ancient-Crippled veteran, worn down after years of fighting mechas but can still kick ass. Less fancy stuff but better at maneuvers.

Monado Mage-Magical girl Arcane caster that can also hit stuff hard with staves, casting elemental spells is rewarded with producing orbs that provide passive bonus to party.

Monado Maid Rebel-Was forced to become a cyborg after most of original body was destroyed by mecha. Probably gets super robot upgrades so basically miniature mecha, but smaller reactor means they can't keep going for long.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: ketaro on March 30, 2018, 12:03:16 PM
Xenoblade Chronicles X is also definitely ripe for mecha stuff.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: YuweaCurtis on March 30, 2018, 05:02:01 PM
Not sure if I'm really feeling it.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: YuweaCurtis on April 02, 2018, 05:52:59 PM
I don't think you mentioned the Einst Queen feats in the index update.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on April 03, 2018, 12:06:56 AM
I don't think you mentioned the Einst Queen feats in the index update.

Well I thought that one would be hard to miss, but added to the changelog anyway.

Xenoblade Chronicles X is also definitely ripe for mecha stuff.

To my eternal shame still didn't manage to play that one :(.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Fzzr on April 03, 2018, 02:23:56 AM
Ok, that's all the spelling and editing stuff I have for today. Just one other thing.

This came up when talking about discipline access among classes a while ago. It would be nice to have White Raven Crown equivalents for the various disciplines in the system. We came up with these ideas:
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on April 03, 2018, 02:58:45 AM
Hmmm, quite like those. Added to the personal equipment thread, just changed the Into the Danger Zone from gauntlets to boots since it's heavily based on movement and the signature move is GESPENT MECHA KICK! Thanks once more!  :D
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Fzzr on April 03, 2018, 03:16:04 AM
GESPENT MECHA KICK!

You seem to have misspelled SUPER INAZUMA KICK (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gv7cW_ijtQQ).

Glad you like them!
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: YuweaCurtis on April 04, 2018, 02:05:36 PM
Oi, how about a wake board or something so a Pilot can sky surf out of mecha?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on April 05, 2018, 10:31:01 AM
That's kinda supposed to be already covered by Born to fight.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Fzzr on April 05, 2018, 06:23:49 PM
Oi, how about a wake board or something so a Pilot can sky surf out of mecha?

[DAYS (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Da3JfD4CDnY) INTENSIFIES]
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on April 06, 2018, 11:45:19 AM
See, if you want to bribe motivate me, some nice music goes a long way. Added Wake Board to personal equipment.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Fzzr on April 26, 2018, 04:29:46 AM
@YuweaCurtis since I don't think I've asked you directly: Do you mind if I add your contributions to the wiki? http://srwd20.wikia.com/
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: YuweaCurtis on April 26, 2018, 09:06:16 AM
@YuweaCurtis since I don't think I've asked you directly: Do you mind if I add your contributions to the wiki? http://srwd20.wikia.com/

Go ahead.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Fzzr on April 27, 2018, 03:18:03 PM
@YuweaCurtis since I don't think I've asked you directly: Do you mind if I add your contributions to the wiki? http://srwd20.wikia.com/

Go ahead.

Great, thanks! Mecha (http://srwd20.wikia.com/wiki/Real_Pilot#GN-0000_00) and Feats (http://srwd20.wikia.com/wiki/Pilot_Feats#Trans-Am_.5BPilot.5D) added.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: CKirk on May 08, 2018, 01:16:40 PM
The new things (Fake Frame and Decoy Doll) look really neat, but I've got a couple of questions about them. I'm reading Fake Frame as serving as a second health bar (like the Duel Gundam's Assault Shroud) that takes damage first, and then you purge it and are back at full. If that's correct, it seems kinda absurd for a grade 2 accessory. If it's not, perhaps it should specify that all damage goes through to the inner mech as well. Decoy Doll's question is more simple. It's listed as having the weapon trait 'Immediate'. Should that be 'Defensive'?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Fzzr on May 08, 2018, 04:14:40 PM
In unrelated items:

We were discussing ways to emulate things from SRW. One thing that came up was weapons like Twin Buster Rifle that split the attack into two cones. Right now Battleships can do roughly that via Weapons Officer. I wanted to check: Since twin- and X-linked let you make separate attacks with each weapon as one action, does that mean Area weapons can project different cones/lines/explosions when used?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on May 08, 2018, 09:59:22 PM
The new things (Fake Frame and Decoy Doll) look really neat, but I've got a couple of questions about them. I'm reading Fake Frame as serving as a second health bar (like the Duel Gundam's Assault Shroud) that takes damage first, and then you purge it and are back at full. If that's correct, it seems kinda absurd for a grade 2 accessory. If it's not, perhaps it should specify that all damage goes through to the inner mech as well.
Well yeah it's supposed to be a second health bar, but more "I was holding back my true power!" like in Gundam Buid Divers where not-Char adds an extra frame to his top-class mecha to disguise himself as a newbie but when it is purged he can go all out, rather than an emergency measure where you keep fighting with an inferior version.

So that's basically supposed to be the main disadvantage. You may get an extra health bar, but you'll be limited to a real robot one whole tier lower (and if you have delayed arsenal progression it will lag even more behind). That reminds me, added clause that the Fake Fraime's arsenal options must also be of lower level.

Decoy Doll's question is more simple. It's listed as having the weapon trait 'Immediate'. Should that be 'Defensive'?
Ups, fixed!

In unrelated items:

We were discussing ways to emulate things from SRW. One thing that came up was weapons like Twin Buster Rifle that split the attack into two cones. Right now Battleships can do roughly that via Weapons Officer. I wanted to check: Since twin- and X-linked let you make separate attacks with each weapon as one action, does that mean Area weapons can project different cones/lines/explosions when used?
Yes. Rushing Dandy would help with changing areas shapes too.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Fzzr on May 09, 2018, 12:55:01 AM
Great, thanks for the clarification.

A note on Fake Frame: If I'm reading it correctly, it currently allows you to have infinite healthbars if you have access to T3 arsenal or above. Just give the fake real another fake frame as an accessory, repeat. Utterly absurd and no DM would allow it, but I still recommend noting that the fake real robot cannot equip Fake Frame.

In another amusing result, this lets a Battleship (easily C and up) disguise itself as a KNIGHTMARE (Tiny). May I recommend restricting fake frames of the size of your real mecha or larger only?
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: oslecamo on May 09, 2018, 03:31:00 AM
Good suggestions, implemented.
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Fzzr on May 09, 2018, 12:53:40 PM
Good suggestions, implemented.

Good, good. Now infiltrating a battleship into your base through normal sized hallways would take some kind of tactical geniu---

....
....
....


CREEEEEEEEED!
Title: Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
Post by: Stratovarius on May 11, 2018, 11:46:13 AM
Locked. Threads are not supposed to go longer than 50 pages.