Shadow of Gehenna

[night crown]

hopefully this has smoothed over some existing issues

sorry about weapon stuff, im not sure what causes weapons to not show up, everything seems to be in its right place but if anything sticks out, throw me an @ i do suggest it, i sometimes forget to check in here with all the other stuff i have going on

dont be afraid to tag me in things that come up, i'd like to adress asap and i am very forgetful unfortunately

[lavish trellis]

So good news! Nanoedge daggers are fixed and now show up correctly
Bad new: Hungering dagger still is not fixed.
I'm really not sure what it could be; I dived into the json myself a couple weeks back and found nothing that stood out

[night crown]

Well at least nanoedge is working

[lavish trellis]

Split mod is also broken in the same way

[night crown]

Ah gdi

I’ll look at it in the morning I suppose

I’ve had times where I’ve changed very little or nothing and it’s worked

So I’m not sure

Progress at least

[lavish trellis]

Clearly did something right haha

I'll take a look again and check for differences between nanoedge and hungering

[night crown]

I appreciate that

I want to eventually get around to a big big pass on balance and text and whatnot

[lavish trellis]

I also took a look at futsunushi and that seems to be good on all fronts

[night crown]

I’ve had an idea for Changing up the futsunushi’s core power to be more distinct than “melee Barbarossa core power”

[lavish trellis]

I know I've noticed a couple grammar and spelling issues so I'll make sure to throw them here if/when the time comes!

[night crown]

Yeah I’ve got an editor on my side

[lavish trellis]

Oh? what did you have in mind?

[night crown]

It’s just gonna be about the effort of porting it all to the lcp

[lavish trellis]

yeah LCPs can be a nightmare at times lol

[night crown]

The idea is it might stack up on something related to accuracy rolls or melee hits, vaguely, and then the attack itself is like, a line you can draw anywhere on the map as a melee attack

More distinctly cutting space-time

But the blink Iaido slash is kinda iconic now

[lavish trellis]

Oooo I like that yeah. definitely feeds into the Futsunushi's power fantasy

[night crown]

Overall I’m very happy with the futsunushi so far so it’s on the back burner

[lavish trellis]

If you don't mind me asking: what's top priority right now?

[night crown]

The ones I’m worried about are gonna be like, the kali and Angelo

Mmm

[lavish trellis]

Ahh

[night crown]

Yeah those two mainly

[lavish trellis]

Kali is my favourite but its definitely insanely strong

[night crown]

The main thing is locksteel seems weak generally while ARC is very strong generally

[lavish trellis]

Haven't had the chance for it to be played in my games (though my players do have the option to use it). At a glance, I think just removing a mount would balance it a little

[night crown]

Which is thematically, quite apt, but mechanically not good

Yeah it might end up being that

The Remington might be really strong

But it’s very chance dependant

[lavish trellis]

Yeah I do get the sense LSI is just weaker; i don't really see much insentive to build them besides maybe remmington or for the or kalishnikov (Love the core power)

[night crown]

The makarov got some love

The Kalashnikov is a beauty, I wanted to make a proper berserker type to go toe to toe with the sobek

Might change the friction cleaver to be a proper chainsaw mechanically

The tian gong I think is going to be utterly broken or fine

[lavish trellis]

If you put integrated aux core power on, you have the quintessential knife juggler build. The fact it has a flex for another aux/aux is insane because it means you can either save them for them for overwatch or overcharge for another bunch of damage. When you consider this type of build, Supercharge strike seems somewhat redundant

[lavish trellis]

I would pay good money to see this in a pvp lmao

[night crown]

I think the Kalash should win

[night crown]

Hmm i see

[lavish trellis]

probably yeah. Sobek has to get lucky with blood drinker roles otherwise kalish wins war of attrition

I like supercharge strike; pair it with split mod and its super cool to have a dagger that bursts after piercing a bunch of enemies

[night crown]

I need to get the main stuff finished because I do have some alt-frame options for licenses in mind

[lavish trellis]

Don't get me wrong I adore the kali but man it is very strong lol

[night crown]

I’ll have to smooth out interactions here

[lavish trellis]

Any teasers I can get 👀

[night crown]

Yeah I think it’s a result of wanting a thrown dagger focused thing to be strong

[lavish trellis]

Yeah, I think it honestly just needs a very slight tweak in order to be balanced

[night crown]

I’ll indulge sure
The Taurus: a potential Remington Alt acting as a “refined and modern” version that has a minigun integrated

And the Raijin; a Futsunushi alt that might be able to remove the limiting factor of melee’s reach for a price

[lavish trellis]

Oooo I very much look forward to seeing how they turn out then

Sounds really awesome

[night crown]

Story of my life

[lavish trellis]

Same, brother. same...

@night crown found the issue with Hungering Dagger: the mount was set to "aux" when it needs to be called "auxiliary". Just using "aux" only works when its a "main/aux"

[night crown]

Aaah I see

[lavish trellis]

shows up perfectly now :)
still hunting for the split mod issue though

[night crown]

I’ll fix

[lavish trellis]

Split mod had no allowed sizes so it defaulted to disallowing them. Heres the json I got working for both split mod and hungering 👍

  {
    "id": "KALI-2-2",
    "name": "Splitting Mod",
    "source": "ARC",
    "license": "KALI",
    "license_id": "KALI-2-1",
    "license_level": 2,
    "effect": "<div>This mod can only be applied to a melee weapon with the thrown tag. The weapon becomes cone 3 in addition to the thrown tag.</div>",
    "sp": "2",
    "description": "<div>Depending on the weapon this modification is applied to, the Splitting mod can provide a range of additions to saturate an area, from additional blades to auxiliary flechettes fired out from the handles of melee weaponry. The main caveat being that a weapon must already be streamlined, light or engineered correctly to fly cleanly through the air.</div>",
    "allowed_types": [
      "Melee"
    ],
    "allowed_sizes": [
        "Main",
        "Auxiliary",
        "Heavy"
    ],
    "restricted_sizes": [
      "Superheavy"
    ],
    "added_damage": [],
    "added_range": [],
    "tags": [
      {
        "id": "tg_mod",
        "name": "Mod",
        "description": "This modification can be applied to a weapon. Each weapon can only have one Mod, and cannot have more than one of the same Mod. Mods are applied when the user builds their mech or during a Full Repair."
      }
    ]
  },

  {
    "id": "KALI-2-2",
    "name": "Splitting Mod",
    "source": "ARC",
    "license": "KALI",
    "license_id": "KALI-2-1",
    "license_level": 2,
    "effect": "<div>This mod can only be applied to a melee weapon with the thrown tag. The weapon becomes cone 3 in addition to the thrown tag.</div>",
    "sp": "2",
    "description": "<div>Depending on the weapon this modification is applied to, the Splitting mod can provide a range of additions to saturate an area, from additional blades to auxiliary flechettes fired out from the handles of melee weaponry. The main caveat being that a weapon must already be streamlined, light or engineered correctly to fly cleanly through the air.</div>",
    "allowed_types": [
      "Melee"
    ],
    "allowed_sizes": [
        "Main",
        "Auxiliary",
        "Heavy"
    ],
    "restricted_sizes": [
      "Superheavy"
    ],
    "added_damage": [],
    "added_range": [],
    "tags": [
      {
        "id": "tg_mod",
        "name": "Mod",
        "description": "This modification can be applied to a weapon. Each weapon can only have one Mod, and cannot have more than one of the same Mod. Mods are applied when the user builds their mech or during a Full Repair."
      }
    ]
  },

[night crown]

Ooooh ok. Ill change it up in the lcp editor

[lavish trellis]

Cool! I've never used the editor. I just do all mine the old fashioned way lol

[marsh gyro]

"When additional AI systems that can cascade are installed in the Sobek, they fight to hold back the BLOOD DRINKER, slowing the pilot's imminent death. For each additional NHP installed on the Sobek, increase the amount of rounds before the BLOOD DRINKER enters cascade by 1 Per NHP. NHPs are systems That grant your mech the AI tag, and can cascade or be allowed to cascade." is this meant to say increases number on rounds before BLOOD DRINKER kills the pilot instead of cascades? As BLOOD DRINKER cascades when you roll a one "At the end of each of your turns, roll 1d20. On a 1, the BLOOD DRINKER class NHP enters cascade and goes berserk."

[lavish trellis]

I read this as "delay cascade by x turns" but it does feel like its meant to be "increase number of turns before Blood drinker kills the pilot by x turns"

[marsh gyro]

same that's why I'm asking

also is it just me or does cthesian strider claws seem a little strong, like 1d6+1 on aux is crazy but with ap and reliable it's insane

love sobek tho super awesome concept that ive kinda been looking for in homebrew for a while

also in sobek's core system there is typo "You provoke the Sobek to roar, forcing a target within sensor range to make a system safe or be slowed." system SAVE

[lavish trellis]

Foxenstein was talking earlier that the LCP needs a broad rebalance to essentially bring ARC down a peg, and LSI up a few

Sobek is definitely strong, though I'd still say Kali is more broken overall

[marsh gyro]

oh ok

thanks for info

but once again loving the lcp, (haven't read absolutely everything) futsunushi and sobek are awesome, LSI naming convention is probably my favorite ever and all the mechs ive read through have been great

[lavish trellis]

Yeah its gotta be one of my favourite LCPs in terms of style, flavour and lore. Rivals Intercorp licenses imo (though those are more balanced haha)

[night crown]

im not sure what caused this but looking back it may have been something to do with when the Kali was made in the LCP vs now, where i think initially "Auxiliary" was just "aux" but now that i know the issue i can check if its persisting anywhere else

[night crown]

Hopefully I can switch focus to balance rather than dealing with LCP formatting

[lavish trellis]

I think you're in the clear. I checked futsu and that seems to be in the clear; haven't tested anything with LSI yet

[night crown]

Yeah I went over the mods and weapons before I updated the lcp on itch

[toxic crown]

how would splitting mod work on proclamation of thanatos?

[lavish trellis]

I also have a splitting question: how should it work with Kali's main melee (forgot the name). Since it has blast 1, would it split at the end of the throw, and then all hit within the cone emit a blast one? Or would it just blast one + cone 3 originating from same point

Since it's lancer, I always rule the strongest variation because that's fun for players but its always nice to have an intended interpretation

Also it's a shame you can't state mods to work with weapons containing certain tags (to my knowledge at least)

[night crown]

Splitting mod might get a rework

If I’m being honest

The idea behind it being you can turn your thrown weapon into a fan attack I guess

[true phoenix]

@night crown Just to make sure you see it on the itch page I wrote some questions in the comments (blazescott202) I had about the Makarov if u have anything you wanna follow up on feel free to dm me

[night crown]

ill have a looksee

[night crown]

alright so

1. this will be corrected in a future update
2. the bracketed "And count as taking the grapple action) is key here, it follows the Jockey rules first and foremost, while the Makarov is Jockeying, it grapples
3. and .5 No, unless a trait provides a bonus to jockey, the jockey for the makarov is not initiated through a grapple action, and does not roll for a grapple initially. I will consider letting the Makarov use hull or otherwise in place if it doesn't work out as well in practice.
4. I do not believe Grappling normally jockeys, no, grappling does not permit the use of the various jockey actions
5. I want this to be a unique as jockeying, I want grapple systems for features to be usable with the makarov but not prioritized

[true phoenix]

Got it thank you!

[glossy patio]

Question, I don't see it happening too often, but does the "On crit" effect of the Lock-Blades from the Sobek stacks?

[lavish trellis]

I would personally rule that as applying just once lol

[fallen zealot]

Hey there all, relatively new GM here with a question regarding the Angelo frame.

Full Metal Flight Suite
The Angelo can hover when it moves, while hovering it does not benefit from armor.

If a player also possesses the Rapid-Burst Jump Jets, does the Angelo's innate hovering ability overwrite the JJ's fall at the end of its movement? My gut says yes but I figured I would ask

[mellow latch]

hiya! can i ask for some clarification on the Mossberg's Conflux trait?

do the benefits of Brace apply if the ally is hit with a different attack, or is it intended to be an anti-blast trait?

[pure nacelle]

heyy, i was reading up on the futsunushi's core and i noticed it stated "...you may only skirmish and move up to two spaces while charging"
the only being able to skirmish part is pretty self-explanatory, but does the latter bit mean you can only move up to two spaces on your turn, or can you only move two spaces throughout the entire time you're charging the blade?

[cinder lake]

Is there a PDF with everything?

[lavish trellis]

Not as of yet, to my knowledge

[eternal wren]

Does exta quick action from ocelot obey restrictions on duplicate actions?

[jovial saddle]

does it say it makes the quick action as a free action?

[winged aurora]

Not sure if you're already aware of this or not, but I was tinkering with the Sobek on COMP/CON and noticed that taking the Gyges Frame Core Bonus from IPS-N (the one that adds an extra threat to melee weapons) interacts weirdly with some of its weapons. Ripper Jaws work normally but the Cthesian Strider Talons and Lock-Blades jump to 11 threat (seems like its combining the 1's like a string instead of adding integers?).
First screenshot is the weapons without the core bonus, second is with, and third is of the same weapons on a Blackbeard since I wanted to double check it wasnt a bug with the frame itself.

[proven thistle]

I've seen this before. The problem is that JavaScript is a fucking hodgepodge of a language, and treats "+" as both addition and string concatenation. The other problem is that the threats for those weapons are strings instead of integers in the Comp/Con file, and "1" + 1 = "11" instead of an error like it should be.

[night crown]

Hey yall, for anyone still watching, work has been slow, because life gets in the way, but life has given me a break and i have an itty bitty update which should clean up some things.

Right now i'm doing small adjustments on the lcp and focusing more on getting the actual Mission module sorted out more solidly. Hopefully i can get some playtesters onto the lcp soon and really sort it out, i've got ideas in mind, its just taking some time.

[lavish trellis]

If you need playtesters, hmu. Id love to give it a run!

[night crown]

Anything works! If people want to take the lcp and run the mechs with some friends that’s awesome as long as I get a nice amount of feedback

[fallen zealot]

What's changed?

[night crown]

Not much at all, I lowered some damage in the Remington and fixed some errors here and there

[toxic crown]

Polemos and Kali overlap playing nice?
Melee cone 3?
If thrown, cone at end of 20 range or cone instead?

Splitting Mod
This mod can only be applied to a melee weapon with the thrown tag. The weapon becomes cone 3 in addition to the thrown tag.

The Proclamation of Thanatos
3 Threat | 20 Thrown | 2d6+6
When this weapon is thrown, characters in a blast 1 area around its target must make an agility save or take 2d6 kinetic damage and be knocked prone, on a successful save characters take half damage and are not knocked prone. If the main target is hit by the attack and fails the agility save they are stunned instead of knocked prone.

[lavish trellis]

Pretty sure this was asked before, but Im pretty sure its gm discretion. Though, ive ruled it in the past as splitting at the end of the thrown range because its cooler. However its possible @night crown says differently.

[night crown]

I’ll have to consider it, but yes, gm discretion is allowed for now. I’ll probably address splitting mod’s wording however to not cause any player-gm arguments

[night crown]

This is a weird outlier given how the weapon works, but I would say “main target” would refer to the first target hit

[alpine slate]

does charge 1 Resonant Frequency Muramasa Blade require a successful hit on one enemy to use its guaranteed to hit the final enemy effect on another enemy in its area? Or is it almost an "on attack" effect, where for example the RFMB only targets one enemy and gets to use its guaranteed to hit effect on that enemy?

[night crown]

yeah, its the later essentially, if you only hit one target is is the first and last target o be hit, meaning that yes, you'll always hit the person you're going for if you cat only them

[leaden depot]

Hey question on the sobek, can the blood drinker NHP use your talents when it's going berserk or doing a usual takeover as a protocol?

[leaden depot]

And can the enlightenment class nhp stop blood drinker from cascading?

[marble jewel]

ok, what the hell is Blood Moon supposed to do, mechancially?

Effect

1/scene, you sync up with a fraction of your alternate reality selves. When you make a barrage or skirmish during your turn, 2d3+1 selves follow up, dealing half the damage of your original attack regardless of if an attack hits or not. If your attack was a critical hit and all possible of the alternate selves attack it is considered Perfect Harmony and your target is completely erased from existence, destroying it.
If Perfect Harmony occurred, at the end of the turn your Mech folds in on itself, blinking itself and the pilot into an alternate reality until the next rest.

[urban carbon]

From the looks of it nuke the bejesus out of a singular target and if you do it right give yourself a break till the next rest?

Also make it so that without a doubt that person is DEAD. Like no come back just utterly obliterated

[marble jewel]

Like does that mean that you get 2d3+1 followup attacks?

becouse jesus fuck that OP

[young scaffold]

Balance sobek please because holy shit is this massively unbalanced to hell and back

[lavish trellis]

How so?

[lavish trellis]

@night crown any ruling on this because some wording is a little ambiguous. I take it that each of the alternatives deal damage regardless of whether the true self hits or misses, so you roll damage even if you miss, then half it. But it could also mean that all the alternatives attack independently and always deal half, but sometimes deal full damage if they hit, and the reason I say this is because of the third sentence stating that "if all possible alternatives attack" implying that they might not attack, contradicting the second sentence which implies they all attack

[proven thistle]

I think it means you have to roll max on the 2d3+1.

And have all of them hit.

[night crown]

Zemyla has the right of it, yes.

I can figure out different wording for it later this week, make it make more sense

[marble jewel]

Yeah, I still don't understand how it works.

Could you walk me through an example of using it?

[night crown]

alright we'll go basic:

You declare you attack and activate blood moon, You roll your attack, hit on a 23 (critical hit) and you deal 10 damage.

you roll for blood moon, lets say you roll a 1 and a 3, so plus 1 thats 5 extra hits that all deal 5 more damage.

next time you roll a 10, you miss, however you still activate blood moon, you roll your damage, 8 this time, and then your blood moon dice that come out to 4, you do an extra 4 hits that deal for damage.

Last one: you roll to hit, get a 25 (critical) then you roll your blood moon dice, 7 (max possible follow ups) you dont need to roll damage because the enemy is simply destroyed but at the end your turn you also pop out of reality and need to get returned later during a rest scene

[marble jewel]

... That seems remarkably powerful, especially if paired with a very High damage Superheavy.

pop the power, Blap someone with something like a Tempest Charge blade, and then hit them for something like 64 damage.

Delete most ultras, or simply smash through a elite Goliath 1/scene

[night crown]

it is, at the moment, and tweaks will be made most likely, but it does get affected by armor that many more times, and resistances

[young scaffold]

It gets +5 damage on every attack, can attack with every mount in a single turn, gets bonus damage, gets healed for killing non grunt enemies, can straight up obliterate enemies attacking it by doing giga damage (making it impossible for the GM to present a bossfight, since the boss is ded the moment the sobek gets attacked, also introduces Powerscaling issues when other people are using 1st party frames and properly balanced homebrew, the sobek and it's license is massively overpowered in comparison, as is most of shadow of gehana

I realise this is harsh, but it's basically impossible to play with this without insane powercreep, and making everyone else suffer just because one person wanted to play it, including the GM

I know shadow of gehana is relatively recent so I hope it gets properly balanced in the future, I like homebrew that is good because of cool new stuff, not because of overpowered new stuff, and as it stands, this is overpowered new stuff

[night crown]

i will. Ignore, most of this, to ask, have you had the sobek or any other Gehenna frame run in a game, or is all just from reading it

i dont want to assume

[young scaffold]

We haven't run in a game yet, but based on reading it seems pretty OP

And the bossfight part still applies regardless

[night crown]

Alright, I will note that a lot of time was spent on the sobek to try and bring it on line on paper, especially with its core AI which grants it power while it’s unshackled and a threat to its own pilot and its teammates

But I suppose I’ll note these issues and it will be tackled when I have time to personally play test it

[young scaffold]

On the threat to its own teammates thing

Sekhmet can only do it's stuff 1/round and also only gets bonus damage on a crit

The sobek gets all of that for free, without a round restriction, and does even more damage

Theoretically, it's just... Not fun have a player who can just, deal 60+ damage in a turn to a ally and just, kill them then die themselves because the sobek kills its own pilot afterwards too

Also cascading NHP rules are that you are no longer in control and the GM takes control so like

The sobek becomes an enemy at that point and the original player isn't even playing anymore

[night crown]

That is the idea of the sobek, how long someone is willing to engage with it’s unshackled power. Mind you can’t willingly unshackle it. Which is where it gets so much power from

One of the core issues was “why would I ever risk myself and the other PCs having it be unshackled?” The power was the reward for letting it run rampant

Now something like the weapons and systems are more understandably unbalanced, deathroll specifically needs to have its wording changed

[dusk mica]

I'm just curious about how fun it is for the player, since unlike Sekhmet, to get that power you kinda have to give up your ability to play the game. Like, to get the most out of Sobek you genuinely just get out your phone and start browsing a social media of your choice for a few rounds because you don't even get to play the game you're here to play

[night crown]

The fun is from that timer, again, it’s random, I’m not sure where this implied idea that it can be activated like Sekhmet comes from, it is happenstance, the fun comes from making use of this opportunity and gambling how long you want it to go for, the sobek has the ability to boot up as a quick action to get the player back in the action quicker after stopping its inbuilt nhp

I could just as easily say Sekhmet can be “set and forget”, I don’t think it is but I certainly could

There are 11 other mechs in the lcp, if someone doesn’t like the concept behind the sobek then they can pick a different frame.

The very concept of the sobek is “unrestrained, uncontrolled power”

[dusk mica]

The comparison from Sekhmet comes from the fact that while the Sekhmet has a very specific set of restrictions that must be followed, the player is still mechanically in control and has to make decisions on their turn.

With Sobek's cascade, the player literally loses all decision making outside of "Do I turn it off". If you don't plan to turn it off that turn you straight up just turn your brain off as the GM takes your turn because it's cascading.

So when you do your 'thing', you don't even get to play the game, and your turn is reduced to literally nothing more than a binary 'do I turn this off or not'. You have 0 other choices or interactions with the game as the GM takes your turn for you

Power issues aside I don't think a frame is particularly fun for the players when it's 'ultimate power mode' is 'reduce your turn down to nothing more than a binary yes/no while the GM controls your character'

[night crown]

Ok. I’ll clear some more things up, originally the sobek’s cascade timer was hidden from the player. Which added some interesting edge but I decided it was more frustrating as a concept than interesting

If you’re here to make a statement beyond “I personally don’t think the mech sounds fun” by all means, make it be heard, otherwise I’ll stick to the work that has been done on it thanks to people who were interested and engaged in the concept

[dusk mica]

I suppose we'll just have to see what people think after it's been properly playtested

[knotty tinsel]

I've got a player playing Sobek, and I've been tweaking it as we played. It is, undoubtedly very powerful in play.

I did also discuss this at length with the player, making the clock hidden, because it's the only way to actually create a tension. But it's not really worth it IMO, for the sake of maybe killing a pilot // main PC. I just settled on the fact that it's an empty threat (Because shutting down the mech and ending a Cascade is deterministic).

[knotty tinsel]

anyhow if you are looking for feed back, I'd be happy to share what I've observed with the frame.

[night crown]

absolutely! you've already given some good info already, i'd love to hear more and the possible tweaks youve made, thats awesome

[knotty tinsel]

So I didn't touch the base traits. Organic is fine; Phantom is powerful, but I didn't touch it; Adrenaline Pump is a problem, but for reasons that ultimately I don't care about (I'll mention it later)

The CORE PASSIVE, I tweaked. The Heal is GRIT instead of 1d6+1, it is killing things, it doesn't need that layer of survivable, but it's fine as a minor perk (And even then, very few mechs heal at all, so it's unique).
The Cascade every turn I left in, it's part of the fantasy for the player, and or exciting.
The pilot kill I mentioned before, but I did change it from 1d6+2 (Which might not even happen by the end of most SitReps) to 1d3+1 so it is far more likely they actually have to deal with consequences (Spoiler alert, they don't anyways, it's an empty threat).
I did not touch the +5 Reliable // +5 damage on cascade, despite the fact that it's entirely cracked. Like, just absurd. But it doesn't happen frequently, and it goes away after they kill one guy, so I'm fine. Again this is a "power fantasy" trait.
The random attacks don't effectively impact it's goals. It's almost 100% of the time in the middle of OpFor, not standing next to an ally, so it's really not an issue or enough of a "draw back" to justify the over the top damage, but it's fine, against, it happens seldom enough and stops after one kill.
The CORE ACTIVE definitely needed to get thrown out. +1 Difficulty on every roll anyone makes within 5 with no way to avoid it??? Nnnnoooo. The Lycan forces people to save vs Impaired within 3 and grants Difficulty on attacks against anyone who isn't it with two different traits on it's frame, and that's a huge chunk of it's defense budget.
+1 Difficulty against Everyone close to you for any D20 roll at all is so beyond reasonable. Notably, the first time this played out, instantly you could tell the other players were having less fun because it's so free and make everyone else's gimmicks look less appealing. It's like being a normal person and walking into a basketball game with an All-Star, you just question why you're here lol.

Anyways, I changed that to +1 Difficulty to all System Saves//Checks only, which is still impactful, and hooks into the "1/round force a save to give them slow." combined with the "Jump on anyone who fails saves." both of which, for those second bits, I did not change.

[knotty tinsel]

There are some minor tweaks to gear as well. Cthesian Strider Talons are cracked. 1d6+1 AP on an Aux just is never going to fly. Paying SP for it doesn't make it ok, in my experience. Again, this is better than a Tactical Melee (A main weapon), and just, over the top.
My change to this was minimal, just bringing it in line with normal Aux weapons, 1d3+1, keeping Reliable 2 and AP, both of which are already incredible for the 1SP it costs.

Ripper Jaws also is the kinda design that "makes it's own rules" in the sense of, it's "got flaws" but also the answer to it's own flaws baked into the item. An inaccurate weapon that has a way to Auto-hit AND gain AP, on top of being over-budgeted damage (d6+4 is nearly heavy damage), just isn't going to fly. I introduced a new set of perks // flaws to make it so it's not simply being used every turn or worse, multiple times a turn with Overcharge & Overwatch to just demolish anything it looks at.
Ripper Jaws kept the damage (Which again, is more than it needs) at 1d6+4, Threat 1 still. I gave it Ordnance so it can't utilize over-the top mobility that is so easy to acquire for Melee characters (Pankrati, Hunter Lunge on a mech with busted Auxes, Skirmisher), so now it has to set up to get a kill-bite in, and can not attack with it multiple times in a turn in any way (Which is the biggest reason the over the top damage is acceptable). It still has Inaccurate, which is easily fine with Phantom Foe waiting to make it a hit for free, along side the absurd amount of easily accessible accuracy bonuses for main-melees (Duelist, Pankrati + Slow effects [which this frame enables itself also], prone, grapple + Brawler on a mech made to grapple, etc), the point is if inaccurate is the only thing holding this back, it's meaningless.
I also changed the Grapple perk for Jaws. If you are grappling the target, you can Ignore Ordnance, it still gains AP. I removed the Auto-hit because that is very unnecessary with everything else the frame is doing, and the general tools the game has available, assuming you're not playing with only the CRB (although even without Pankrati, this license goes too hard).

I have no modified any other systems or weapons. Lock-blades are a minor thing and Aux, they don't do absurd damage or move the needle in that way, so enabling grapples seems fine. Type 2 Lasher is very good, but I'm alright with the player having some fun systems that are not immediately resulting in a dead NPC.

I also haven't seen the Rank 3 gear in play, the player only went 2 ranks in Sobek, but even then, the frame provided so much raw power at that point, it was untennable. We played a full Mission (3 combats) before I had to say no to the upper limit of damage it was dealing.

From what I've observed in general, the License doubles down on what it does way too hard. The minor tweaks I've worked out with my player at least bring it in line so it's not killing 1 NPC on it's own every turn and just melting through the OpFor laughing. Even Super Heavy mounted weapons don't always delete an NPC, this thing was just crewing up anything it touched and asking for more, before the changes.

While typing this out, btw, I realized something. I don't know if the Sobek itself is specifically coded as being a terror to NHPs, but I think it would be far more of a "threat to it's own allies" when it cascades, if it didn't prefer to strike things that most recently damaged it (Which perfectly aligns with going after the bad guys, how many allies damage you?), but instead hunted other NHPs, so other players with NHPs were quickly put in harms way.

I am probably going to pitch this to my player to see how they feel about it.

Oh, btw, Adrenaline is bad because it's a QA boot up on a mech that "might kill you, ooooOooO spooky" but you can just shut down to avoid it (aka, there is no way to die) and this turns around and makes shutting down your mech even less of a problem on top of that. This is the kinda thing I meant when I said it's just doubling down. It's pretending to make a problem that really is not a problem (Threat of pilot death), even less of a problem (Now with quick reboot!).

But yeah, overall I think it's very powerful, if there was a tier rating system for frames, this would easily class in the S-tier, no questions. Even with me toning it down in general it's still wicked powerful, but it's become less of a detriment to other people having fun.

[young scaffold]

@night crown if one puts the principle of the tiger core bonus on a futsu then will the core bonus and the futsu's blade bound frame trait stack and let you make two additional half damage attacks on a crit?

[night crown]

It would, yes but that core power is marked for being changed in my side of things

@knotty tinsel ok really really awesome feedback thank you, right now I saw it while I was act work so I haven’t been able to absorb all of it, only major parts, I do like the internal changes you’ve made and I think a couple of them might make it into my version (I really like the ordinance tag on the jaws, feels appropriate). And it’s good to hear that the strider talons are too strong in practice, I think the goal will be to make them much more interesting and unique rather than just strong.

I find the adjustment in the timer really interesting, because those numbers you gave are very close to the earlier version of it, as for the core I can certainly see the issues in play now. I think with adrenaline pump, I kind of want to keep it, but I’m not sure if a 1/scene clause will hamper it too much.

The heal being grit is good too, I that’s nice power curve change too

When I get a chance I’ll look at it at home and have it infront of me

[wanton yew]

Question about the ARC Sobek
Do you make a regular attack with every weapon and deal the regular damage or does every weapon just do a flat 3 kinetic damage on hit?

Player was concerned about it being rather weak for a full action

Which honestly, is a valid concern, considering how cracked up the license weapons of the Sobek stack up in a barrage

[fierce bronze]

Does blood moon trigger on hit effects?