General Discussion and Suggestions

[CKirk]

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?

[Anomander]

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.

[SorO_Lost]

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.

[Anomander]

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.

[oslecamo]

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.

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.

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

[SorO_Lost]

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.

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.

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.

[Anomander]

(click to show/hide)

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.


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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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. 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. It also provides a source of sentient sacrifices off the copied pilots. You can also get the copies to form a mob you can then lead, thus bypassing quite a few penalties. 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.
The ability also assumes that the user has control over the copies.
The ability also has a lot of utility outside of combat.
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.

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.

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.

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. 

[SorO_Lost]

Progression rates for, well everything, being horribly off is kind of standard for Ols's homebrew through

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.

[Anomander]

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.

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.

[SorO_Lost]

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.

[oslecamo]

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.

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".

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.

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! 

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.

[CKirk]

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.

[Anomander]

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

[SorO_Lost]

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.

[oslecamo]

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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)

-Can copy any creature. Including creatures that can cast Ice Assassin.
-Zero State can produce a single copy at first level. You can produce 20 copies earliest at 16th level earliest, aka one level before you fill the multiverse with an infinity of chain-casted ice assassins, assuming you didn't cheese out earlier casting methods. And said twenty copies are limited to basic stuff so they would still lose hard to a lone ice assassin of a fullcaster.

-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!

[Anomander]

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.

[oslecamo]

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.

[CKirk]

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.

[SorO_Lost]

A wiki sounds painful due to all the formatting involved but hey I'd love to edit his homebrew for him

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.

[oslecamo]

I'm completely fine with a wiki as long as the original authors are properly recognized.