Author Topic: General Discussion and Suggestions  (Read 247182 times)

Offline CKirk

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Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #480 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

Offline ketaro

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Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #481 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.

Offline CKirk

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Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #482 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.

Offline ketaro

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Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #483 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 -_-'

Offline Rekmond

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Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #484 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.
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Offline oslecamo

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Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #485 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.

Offline oslecamo

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Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #486 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.

Offline CKirk

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Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #487 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.

Offline SorO_Lost

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Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #488 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).

Offline CKirk

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Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #489 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.





Offline oslecamo

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Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #490 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.

Offline CKirk

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Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #491 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)

Offline Raineh Daze

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Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #492 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.
« Last Edit: November 03, 2016, 08:45:11 PM by Raineh Daze »

Offline CKirk

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Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #493 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?

Offline SorO_Lost

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Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #494 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?
« Last Edit: November 04, 2016, 01:54:08 AM by SorO_Lost »

Offline oslecamo

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Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #495 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.

Offline SorO_Lost

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Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #496 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.
« Last Edit: November 04, 2016, 11:42:14 PM by SorO_Lost »

Offline CKirk

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Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #497 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."

Offline Raineh Daze

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Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #498 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.

Offline SorO_Lost

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Re: General Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #499 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.