#The NPC Rebake Project and NPC Tinkering Power Zone (NO MULTIATTACKERS ALLOWED)

1 messages · Page 11 of 1

vale crescent
#

The operator counters the PC archetypes that counters it

#

And PCs are just capable of taking more damage so therefore the operator just dies

#

Its not like a drake being bullied by a hive sending it away every turn and burning through its armour. Or a breacher running up to the barbarossa and shredding it's armour and point blank

smoky bluff
#

So it always boils down to who goes first, and we know who activates first

rose hamlet
#

I’m not as convinced but I do see where you’re coming from

smoky bluff
#

I think the CRB operator is rearing it's ugly head rn

neon blaze
#

all the Operator discussion honestly has me really excited to test them out myself come ... errrr

#

I guess the 26th would be the earliest

rose hamlet
#

Because I’d expect crb operator to struggle in similar ways

vale crescent
#

Ok so feedback from a player perspective: i fought an ultra operator...

Telefrag, fade generator, limitless, SCL and nova missiles (yeah you know who this is)

It was the GMs first time playing and ultra and an operator ever AND due to the situation. The NPCs couldn't stabilise so fade generator and limitless couldn't be tested to full potential.

With the rebake. Our no hull 9 HP everest with high agility and double decksweepers was popping off... like unnaturally so... until the prior fight where they got gunned down to oblivion and every shot from a bombard hit (lmao). We also had a drake sagamartha and a swallowtail Chomolungma (me :D)

Luckily we as players knew to deal with fade generator. We never wanted it active and this was doable to slowing them from prone (BCL) and shutting reactions down (self jammed from repair functions and infiltrator). So counterplay to that was a cool ability.

The new SCL is very fun. It happened twice in the fight and was the biggest source of structure to the party. Nova missiles are also amazing, they fit ultras much more than operators default kit AND the shooting when no attacks made is very fun allowing constant chip damage when the ultra is doing other shenanigans (including SCL! They synergise very well)

However, looking at the fight... I thought the decksweeper everest with max agility would struggle against that reliable 3... NOPE, the operator struggled more against a super speedy decksweeper everest than the everest struggled against the operator...

rose hamlet
#

That’s the second “ludicrous speed” build component I’ve heard today in this context

smoky bluff
# rose hamlet Honestly I’m wondering if it would be illuminating to run CRB operators instead ...

I feel like the CRB operator doesn't struggle the same for a few reason

  1. it effectively scales for 7 damage every time the players go up a tier. Meaning mitigating damage is the only way to deal with an operator. Since they attack more with +2 Accuracy, that also means they are more likely to hit an evasive target but the consequences being that if they attack a less evasive target with less way to mitigate the damage, Damnation

  2. Step and Skirmisher greatly increase its speeds to ridiculous lengths, not to mention the old fade generator and how much it effectively turns off most builds due to invisibility which were all removed due to their problematic behaviour at tier 1

rose hamlet
#

First being Jäger Kunst I

vale crescent
#

There was however a point where the GM foolishly pushed me into operator range with a hive instead of pushing me away. So tbh if that didn't happen we could have seen what a speedy full agility striker 1v1 ultra operator would have been like. Also strike and fade the new GM would forget about frequently. The strike part was used the most teleporting first to get accuracy and I'm curious how thr fade part would have worked if it was used more

rose hamlet
#

I should try running the operator rebake soon

smoky bluff
#

Fade is honestly better than strike in most situations and should be taken the most, because the operator already has reliable.

vale crescent
#

Should i ping the GM who ran the ultra operator?

rose hamlet
#

I do note that like, I’m noticing the “player side issues” trend here too

smoky bluff
#

Again, because the operator is greatly risking itself in close range, making use of its great Evasion and E-Defense with what's effectively soft cover against all attacks, including tech attacks.

vale crescent
vale crescent
#

More than strike

#

When I geta attacked without pumping AGI I just assume I'm getting hit

#

So I'm not too phased by it

#

When I shoot someone with difficulty I assume I'll miss

smoky bluff
#

Its also good at mitigating Autostab which is very nice

rose hamlet
# vale crescent Elaborate?

Issues that have popped up in GM corner often:

  • players can accuracy stack very easily with auto stabs and/or talents, negating the fade part of strike and fade
  • players get some obscene mobility tech that not even NPCs get, like JKI, Pankrati, Accelerate, hell even RBJJ
vale crescent
#

Real

smoky bluff
#

Real indeed

#

If fade generator worked more on movement instead of attack, it'll probably be very good

vale crescent
#

NGL gut autostab and vanguard and that's most accuracy stacking gone...

Melee has its own wealth of accuracy increases but NGL i feel like they don't matter as much

smoky bluff
#

As in like the trigger being if a player ends its movement within range 5 of the operator, it can fade generator but that's too good tbh

vale crescent
rose hamlet
#

Note: I’m not trying to open the floor to Playerside tweaks as that’s not what this thread is for. I’m just observing that seems to be what the Operator is running up against

vale crescent
#

It plays into the strengths and weaknesses of operator more

smoky bluff
#

True, it does help against muti-hit builds which is good

#

The current iteration is fine I believe i just keep getting hit with bonus damage stacker single attack mechs

vale crescent
#

Playing more into mobility and weakness of "Me when I get you" more of the default operator

#

And I like that, being shut down by grapple, slowed, infiltrator was fun

vale crescent
neon blaze
#

planning on using an Archer and Bloodhound respectively to try and buy them breathing room to skirmish, with Bastion, Pyro and Aegis as fallback points

vale crescent
#

Give the operator desant hardpoints and a priest

smoky bluff
#

Pathfinder scouts and commander hornets are my go-top support units in amping the operator's power

rose hamlet
neon blaze
#

as am I

#

I've been waiting a month for this mission

#

I wrote like, 2700 words in the space between

smoky bluff
#

Elite Operator is honestly a beast on its own tbh. Operator just works so well when templated it's crazy how much the difference is

#

Like a Lightning Reflex Operator is just cruel at times

rose hamlet
smoky bluff
#

Yeah i mentioned it before, the strider and rebake Operator are extremely similar but even the strider has way to mitigate damage with duck

rose hamlet
#

I thought of a design idea but don’t wanna clutter Kai’s thread with unwanted design

neon blaze
#

but yeah, I'm definitely leaning into the angle of "allow them to both push but also to fallback" and letting their otherwise rather wild mobility handle the rest

#

standard move teleport + boost + skirmish seems to be the plan - its just a matter of the order you resolve them in

rose hamlet
#

I guess it’s a few words: “Overshield instead of difficulty on the Fade half?”

#

But I don’t know

#

I gotta run it first

neon blaze
#

yup, need a basis to work from

vale crescent
smoky bluff
left igloo
#

Is being able to load the LCP not working right now or is it specifically not working for me?

subtle nacelle
#

do you have the corebook npcs installed?

left igloo
#

I do, should I not?

rose hamlet
fringe peak
smoky bluff
#

The Rebake Operator?

vale crescent
#

Found a funny interaction with Snipers mark and the veteran trait

The veteran trait for snipers is mandatory, which means that it can't be used/interacts with things that force saves

#

I'm fairly sure

#

So a sniper hidden sniper using it will reveal, whereas a non veteran would not be revealed

#

This happened when I used orator 3 on a sniper and it couldn't use snipers mark because it forces a save

bold crystal
#

I'm fairly sure applying the sniper's mark to someone is a 'hostile action' that would break hidden, save or not. I'm not as sure about orator 3 - possibly it simply prevents the save from happening but the mark still applies. (I'm also unsure if it works the same as the Kutuzov's core.)

brisk flax
#

a non-veteran sniper that uses a hostile targeted effect on someone is going to be revealed

#

you can't stay hidden and Lock On to someone either

vale crescent
#

Oh yeah, that's just... guh 🙃

vale crescent
#

Page 69 says "Hostile action such as a save", page 77 says "Forces a target to make a save or attack"

#

So IG It's up to GM interpretation of whether snipers mark is "hostile" or not... Unless FAQ clarifies hidden rules (It basically does, I've just been running it as saves or attacks 💀)

#

Either way, that isn't the point. The point is a veteran snipers mark interacts differently with various traits because it forces a save which is mandatory and that's funny and I wanted to point it out

smoky bluff
#

Its the same as a lock on tbh, both are hostile enough

rose hamlet
#

@brisk flax I’m planning on running a playtest game this Saturday for some assorted homebrew. Are there any specific rebake NPCs and optionals you would appreciate seeing? Asking because I know it’s hard to get feedback on less “flashy” optionals. Otherwise I’ll generally try to pick stuff I haven’t seen feedback on yet

vale crescent
#

Soery to intereupt, Does the accuracy from snipers mark get removed if the target is prone or in cover? (Outside the difficulty of cover)

#

It says "They ignore its effects if they are in cover or
Prone. On their turn, characters with the Sniper's Mark may drop Prone as a free action.", the accuracy comes from snipers mark so I assume it does but I want to double check that

indigo oasis
vale crescent
#

Huh, interesting... so it gives them a similar thing to how assaults want to be flanking targets

young turtle
indigo oasis
#

I mean they have but they’ve also been going through a lot of changes so data from them continues to be impactful and desired

#

Idk I haven’t seen much of Seeder

young turtle
#

yeah that's the joke I was making haha

indigo oasis
#

I mean you jest but Operator data still seems to be in high demand

#

Operator stocks are up

vale crescent
#

I haven't run an operator lmao

vestal dagger
#

seeder my beloved

fathom root
#

wrath lock on sentinel, does that give lock on even if enemies are out of sensors?

brisk flax
#

In my experience, having different GMs and groups go through a thing is helpful for getting a variety of data

brisk flax
#

I've also seen some people espousing the take that the rebake as a whole is hostile to melee builds, which I'm not sure I agree with, but if you have any in your testing group, I'd be interested to get your take on it

rose hamlet
#

Roger Roger. Full disclosure is that I like running small maps so melees may naturally feel more at home in my tests. But we’ll see

brisk flax
#

yeah I get that it's kind of a hard thing to evaluate in that fashion but I'll take whatever feedback you have to give if you feel it's noteworthy

rose hamlet
#

Of course! I’ll include all caveats that seem relevant

ebon trenchBOT
#

Reminds me
Ran rebakes on a small encounter
2 Veteran Ronins (no vet trait)
1 Pyro (napalm bomb)
2 Aces
1 Scout
1 Witch

#

Thoughts in no particular order but:

#

Ronins felt much stronger but in a different direction from their standard strength, felt more predictable in their damage output (good.)
Scout with expose weakness felt Good and made the players quake in their boots
Witch was so much more fair for players
Napalm bomb being a system felt much better than a weapon, esp the option of using it as area denial

#

No real complaints, just a solid rework of the units

vale crescent
#

Nothing out of the combats I've played have backed this up any more than before with the CRB counterparts

wanton maple
# ebon trench Reminds me Ran rebakes on a small encounter 2 Veteran Ronins (no vet trait) 1 P...

I recently ran a sitrep with one. Let me recap.

sitrep: Theft

Opfor: all T2. Veteran Commander sniper ( blinding laser, sharpshooter, quick March) Goliath, Ronin, Support , and rpv aegis. With an assault and cataphract for reinforcements.

Players consisted of
Raleigh 2/Caliban 3 shotgun juggler sortenbecker.

A Tortuga 3/ Ghengis 1/Gorgon 1 area denial brick.

A Comet (Suldan) 3 / emperor 1/ Orlando (Grimm and Sons) 1 high speed Nexus striker.

A Deaths Head 2/Pegasus 2/Goblin 1 Death Head Mimic talent stacker..

Both me and players agrees that the Ronin was the MVP of the match, locking down both the Tortuga and the Becker with its threat two sword, and being difficult to dislodged with chaff launchers protecting it.

The sniper, otoh, struggled. The fight was inside a warehouse, so there was a lot of soft cover, but between player equipment and talents, there was pretty much never a turn when they were out of cover. Hell, think ove the 8 round, I think I had fired five shots from the sniper and only one had hit.

I really was not fond of tying the rebaked selective loader to sniper's mark. It basically ended up being a dead optional.

vale crescent
#

DISCLAIMER: So as a player perspective, this was written by what I thought was happening... I don't know if I'm making itu p but I remember at some point snipers having only +2 to hit no base accuracy. This is made under that assumption but looking back it has +1 accuracy and I am just stupid

Additionally, on the topic of snipers I have some feedback on the perspective of a player.

Yesterday I fought a veteran sniper. I like the changes however from the perspective of a player and a GM it felt very limiting.

The fight was a single combat, with new builds. LL2, swallowtail, balor and caliban

Despite being a 1 off combat, it desperately effected the caliban but they were off to the side soloing an elite doing caliban shenanigans. Me and the balor, balor never popped core and I used my core once. Overcharge was used liberally.

The map the sniper was on had lots of LOS blocking terrain limiting its targets, nothing at fault of the NPCs

The issue that happened was the balor kept redeploying a hive drone and this shut down the snipers mark as it should.

Ofc the 2 innate accuracy of the CRB sniper shouldn't be a thing. I just never used snipers mark unless there was a high HP low evasion target on the field who I'd want to threaten. Even then I wouldn't target them with every shot the sniper takes.

The rebake snipers mark I like much more, being a much more crucial part of the kit and being the "won't miss" archetype. And encouraging using it on high Evasion enemies due to the +1 accuracy. However yesterday I found it quite overwhelming when the accuracy was dropped from being in the soft cover, effectively turning soft cover into a +2 DIFF against soft cover targets and +3 DIFF against hard cover. In my mind these feels like it negated a main part of the new snipers mark, simply an easier chance to hit.

Am I being fussy and wanting easy accuracy? Probably, should I have told the GM at the time "just lock on lol", also probably

#

Understandably, snipers mark IMO feels like a controller tool and not a DPS tool (I like this), the accuracy loss from it feels like a weird side effect despite the fact I assume it's intentional design

vale crescent
indigo oasis
vale crescent
#

Wait am I dumb

indigo oasis
#

Adding another point of accuracy would just bring back the problem the Rebake was trying to mitigate, which was “Mark is useless, just attack normally”

vale crescent
#

I may be stupid

#

I ams tupid

indigo oasis
indigo oasis
vale crescent
#

Did the rebake ever have +2 to hit no innate accuracy or am I tripping?

indigo oasis
#

It did yeah

vale crescent
#

DIsregard everything I said

#

I never noticed that was done

#

So called feedback when "Readingg the fucking thing you're feedbacking" enters the room

#

No notes IG lol

brisk flax
#

yeah sorry that got changed a couple patches back

brisk flax
# vale crescent So i haven't given much feedback because a lot of the combats also revolve aroun...

As to this point: I can see the argument in the sense that a number of things have gotten various tweaks and buffs such as Pyros, Demolishers, and Sentinels which can make things rougher for melee units. Unshielded Reactor, for example, is no longer a thing you can ignore by having a Threat 2+ melee weapon, and the change to Eye of Midnight makes engaging into a Sentinel's threat radius an actual danger as opposed to the CRB version which only applies when someone is attempting to move while already within it

#

The flipside of this is I feel that the rebake NPCs also come with a number of tweaks and improvements to things like cover-granting capabilities, like the change to the Barricade's mobile printer allowing more flexible and effective cover deployment, the Bastion's Stack Up, the Mirage's Warp Sensors now creating "stacking soft cover" etc, along with the Ronin leaning more directly into a sort of "strong against ranged specifically" striker

#

plus the Aegis is no longer as limited in when and where it can put up its shield, that sort of thing

indigo oasis
#

And Priest got better at defending against tech attacks

#

Every method of attack got hit with something

brisk flax
#

It's a dynamic I think is going to vary pretty strongly based on map size and opfor and PC comp

#

a small map with a lot of pyros and demolishers and sentinels (or etc) is going to definitely feel a lot punchier against melee units in a way that out of the CRB it wouldn't

indigo oasis
#

I’ve ran all 3 of those melee units in big maps and 2 of them got clowned on while the Sentinel was impactful but ultimately not a fight ender

#

Also disregard the 3 thing, haven’t had the chance to run a rebake Demolisher yet (tho the last 2 Demolishers I’ve ran have been clowned on)

vale crescent
#

It might just be personal opinion of seeing those buffed enemies ALREADY being anti-melee and just not being good enough at it

#

Getting a buff they deserve

brisk flax
#

I mean it's certainly part and parcel of certain things, like to go back to Unshielded Reactor, it's an optional that I've always found (in its CRB implementation) very hard to make effective use out of in a way that made me go "yeah this was super worth it"

#

requiring adjacency on one of the slowest NPCs for a nominal amount of heat is like, yeah I could combo this with some forced movement or slap acrobat on it or something, or I could just pick another optional

wanton maple
#

I know I got a lot of salt from my Sortenbecker player when he read Repulsion Field on the Ultra MBT

brisk flax
#

and that's also a thing to consider: a number of things like this are optionals

#

in the sense of yeah you can probably make the world's most obnoxious anti-melee comp with wide area unshielded reactors and capacitor discharge cataphracts and repulsion field ultras, but you could also field, idk, a bunch of Aces loitering at Range 10 firing missiles at people

#

at a certain point, you're the one making the sandwich

wanton maple
#

Yeah, I dropped in a scout with spotter and a support with Empowered Cloud for a reason.

brisk flax
#

I think that the platonic spherical cow of "you can just pick whatever you want and it will always be appropriately tuned for whatever PC comp it's facing" isn't something that's going to be capable of existing within the structures Lancer is working with, and insofar as I do believe in avoiding traps and gotchas and things that require an exorbitant amount of system mastery to juggle, "if I take a lot of things that are stronger against melee builds, it'll be stronger against melee builds" is one of those things I'm afraid I simply have to trust GMs to be able to figure out on their own

vale crescent
#

Melee builds have always felt very strong

#

Most the time

rose hamlet
#

They’re highly committal, so one would hope they would

vale crescent
#

True

#

But the risk always felt lower than the reward a lotof the time...

#

Personal opinion so take it with a grain of salt

#

The only things it felt like could easily shut them down (depending on the flavour of melee, high mob vs low), controllers felt like the way to turn them off by stopping them before they get close

#

Options to deal with them when they are close are neat

rose hamlet
#

Weird thing that I have yet to encounter yet feel should be true: Bastions should be critical anti-melee NPCs in the CRB

vale crescent
#

Real

#

Bastions 😩

#

Just never used their weapons before because I just grappled and rammed because it was better than their existing tools

rose hamlet
#

Big, targeted resistance, with a hefty shield with knockback

brisk flax
#

also the CRB shield scales insanely hard for some reason

#

3/6/9 damage

vale crescent
#

Lmao what

#

To keep up with the ronins DPS

brisk flax
#

like yeah it's not exactly break the bank levels of damage per se, BUT it's still fucking wild that at Tier 2 all at once it just doubles in damage

vale crescent
#

Hornets damage doubes at tier 2 😤 /j

#

1 -> 2

brisk flax
#

outside of that, I do think that as lancer has progressed over the years in terms of supplemental development, melee has gotten a number of "buffs" that didn't used to exist strictly in the CRB

vale crescent
#

Pankrati, and lots of other movement increases

brisk flax
#

Long Rim introduced the Sunzi so that was already something of a given in terms of additional mobility factor, now we have Pankratii, Prospector, the Tempest Charged Blade and superheavy mounting, etc

#

a lot of the things you could point to as drawbacks for melee focused builds have been smoothed out in various places

wanton maple
#

Players hate anything that implies ”no, you cannot do your thing”.

brisk flax
#

Which I mean hey, that's fair

valid plaza
#

players should learn to enjoy suffering a bit

brisk flax
#

It's one thing if a player feels completely hard-countered, but I think something like repulsion field has a very specific band of things that it specifically makes suffer since it DOES actually require direct adjacency. I'm guessing the Storte in question was trying to leverage a catalytic hammer or something

wanton maple
#

No, Cannibal Juggling.

Crit main melee into reloading the cannibal into emptying both barrels into the target.

vale crescent
brisk flax
#

ah, gotcha

#

time to invest in a war pike I guess

#

anyway

cover_mockup_04-16-25_01.jpg
#

check this shit out

vale crescent
#

Oh hell yeah

#

Assuming you'll get a commission?

valid plaza
#

fuckin sick

brisk flax
vale crescent
#

HELL YEAH!

#

Love Peytons work

#

WS Cover kicks serious ass!!!

brisk flax
#

This one is going to be significantly less demanding than Winter Scar, as we're aiming to go with more of an art book/cross-section vibe for this one

wanton maple
brisk flax
#

the expectation is that the mech on the cover is going to be done in half cross-section style

vale crescent
vale crescent
brisk flax
#

Probably this won't have much if any interior art, mainly because I don't want to break the bank on it

wanton maple
vale crescent
#

Like, uuuh

#

F.I.S.T

#

But mechs

#

:D

brisk flax
#

Peyton mocked up a variety of styles for the design based on various artists

NPCs_rebaked_sketches_04-16-25.jpg
# 
B. Katoki-ish. This was actually the original version. I like the idea of it having such large legs and a comparatively small torso. This is sci-fi nerd bullshitting but in my mind a mech needing larger legs to support itself feels lower tech compared to something with daintier feet or thinner legs.
C. Shinji Aramaki. A lot of Aramaki's designs have this kind of barrel chested proportion to them. Since he did a lot of smaller mechs and power armor, this kinda makes sense since they would need to house a human inside the torso. We don't have that restriction but it can still be interesting. That said this one is at most risk of feeling more power armor than mech.
D. Armored Core V/Verdict Day proportions. The wide flat torso gives it a more vehicular read. When you make the torso this flat it almost reads like a tank turret. 
E. This is basically 1:1 with my original Everest's proportions. A very "stock" look meant to evoke the sort of hapless mook feeling. Low "cool" factor though.
F. Front Mission proportions. Very wide, very flat. Frankly bad for a vertical cover but I needed a 6th option to fill the page.
wheat mortar
#

going to have the next two battles featuring a veteran sniper and veteran seeder

1: veteran sniper, elite assassin, support, bastion, scourer

2: veteran seeder, RPV archer, hive, aegis, scourer

brisk flax
#

to wit: talents that grant cover do not apply to things like "does this interfere with the sniper's mark or not"

#

I don't know if this WAS a factor, but I figure I should clarify if so

# 
OP
 — 3/16/2025 9:18 PM
Sniper's Mark, even the CRB version, is ignored if the marked target is "in cover" and this is generally held to be "in a zone or behind a rock" and not, like, "I have Chaff Launchers"
this is one of those "broad consensus" things but treat it like Hiding
could you use the cover you are benefiting from to Hide normally (ignore weirdos like the Atlas)? if so, then it interferes with Sniper's Mark
if not, you can't
likewise, "being in cover" doesn't require the person BENEFIT from the cover, if that makes sense
i.e. if you somehow gave the sniper's rifle Seeking, someone who was behind a rock would still be "in cover" for the purpose of Sniper's Mark interaction```
#

this is the same basic principle as the Death's Head core power and how it's taken to work, which is that the thing that interferes with it is Being In A Thing Of Cover and not just "I have soft cover because I am god's own special precious child"

vale crescent
#

I think when I played yesterday it was "has cover", which did not effect the fight too much

#

But then rereading it it was "in cover"

brisk flax
#

The wording should be the same between CRB and rebake versions, if it's not then that may be an lcp issue

wanton maple
#

Yeah, I read it was has cover, not is in cover. That would have made the sniper significantly more effective

brisk flax
#

Gotcha, yeah, that's the thing to keep in mind there. I agree this is not as intuitive as I would prefer, though lancer doesn't really have a convenient disambiguation for this

brisk flax
#

Characters know when they have the Sniper's Mark. They ignore its effects if they are in cover (i.e. behind hard cover or within a zone that grants soft cover) or Prone. this is probably the cleanest and most concise I can make this in formal terminology

vale crescent
#

Ah thats neat

brisk flax
#

(i.e. behind an obstruction or within a zone that grants hard or soft cover) I think that might work better, as it covers things like Stasis Barriers etc that are obstructions but provide soft cover etc

vale crescent
#

I think the problem with that is if somethiung has soft cover from being behind but not adjacent to soft cover?

brisk flax
#

doesn't count, no

#

gotta be posted up or in a zone

#

you still get the soft cover benefit if it comes down that way, but that is not sufficient to negate the sniper's mark effects

indigo oasis
#

Yeah so something like Magnetic Shield wouldn’t help

#

So perhaps stick with the old wording

fringe peak
#

funnily enough i had multiple fights using stuff like the new pyro or demolisher and often the swollwtail went 'nu uh'

#

a minor critique that a player had is there's alot more 'marks' and things you have to put stuff otnto players and enemies, to a point where it starts to look like word soup on the owlbear VTT.

Not a big problem or naything you can really solve as it's relegated to a singular VTT. It's just something we noticed

smoky bluff
#

Sniper Testing? Say no more

#

Time to run a rebake Sniper in most encounters now lol

#

Btw a fun tactic i have been adopting is what i'll call "Sniper Hanging" where i make use of the climber trait to give the sniper hard cover but still have high ground purely due to the fact that Climber lets them hang on walls

#

Here is how the set up looks like

image.png
#

Free hard cover

#

and high ground

rose hamlet
#

smart play

smoky bluff
#

tbh I need to play around climber trait, shit underratted

vale crescent
#

One of the coolest things I saw... When a sniper just jumped whilst on a wall

#

To another wall

#

I was like

#

"woah"

smoky bluff
#

absolute badass

simple juniper
#

I ran a Sniper last Saturday.

It marked the PC Artilleryman because the fucker was out of cover at the right time.

The PC Controller scanned the Sniper and went OK NOW WE HAVE TO PRIORITIZE THE SNIPER.

The Melee guys had to do some maneuvering (aka "The Caliban used Juggernaut III") to overcome the barrier imposed by the Rebaked Barricade to get to the Sniper.

The PCs managed really well. No structure lost, which was expected as the opfor was supposed to be not-so-adept at this, but even the Melee players did a lot of cool shit.

brisk flax
#

Admittedly I'm sort of curious how CRB snipers tend to fare on average because tbh it feels like a lot of sniper and operator feedback largely boils down to "everyone collectively agrees to make those guys eat shit"

#

Which like okay cool, I can't gainsay that behavior, but it does mean I'm not getting what I would consider a broad spectrum of engagement metrics

#

My guess is the CRB sniper is probably pretty heavily deformed around Moving Target a lot of the time

rose hamlet
#

Very interested in seeing/testing how 2+ simultaneous snipers handle

smoky bluff
#

Ran a Gauntlet Sitrep with core Powers at LL6 with 3 players (Suppose to be 4 but oh well)

Vorpal Brawler 3 Gorgon
Combined Arms Everest
Superthermal blade Heatgun Chomolungma

Opfor
Commander Scourer
Assault
Elite Hornet
Ultra Pyro
Vet Demolisher
Sniper

Reinforcements
Breacher

Gorgon was a menace with Stuns but having Bolster Network was just enough to mitigate the Stunned effects on most npcs

2 Defenders built around tanking melee hits and all ranged npcs, this sitrep was a brutal one, even more so since we were down a player. Unlucky rolls have destroyed 1 of the mechs. One through reactor meltdown, they won at round 5 after no more enemies contest the area since it was getting late.

Sniper - Although Untemplated, having it behind a wall of npcs with templates to throw at the player was enough to ensure that the players couldn't really answer to it. Most of the players was as melee based and so struggled to keep up with it.

Shift sights is really good. I'd say i'd prefer this over moving target. Its fun playing mind games with marking seemingly random players on the first then on the next round, if the players are positioning good, there is usually always a target nearby to shoot at. Even though the Gorgon was an everlooming threat, Bolster Network was there to save the sniper.

Cover was prevalent expect for the middle of the map, where there is a difficult terrain pool of water for the players to cross through. It is by far the fastest route to the objective zone and the players walked directly into the sniper's line of fire. I'm not sure what else i could say, players kept moving so deadeye never proc. TBH that would be more suited for holdout than Gauntlet where players are on the constant move and defensive grappler didn't see any changes

image.png
brisk flax
#

I think Shift Sights has the potential to be very potent, which is why it's got a recharge gate

smoky bluff
#

yeah i got recharge twice in this encounter so I was changing target constantly, however, the kill of the gorgon corpse in the picture is creditied to the Pyro, Replusor field and Unshielded reactor is some dirty bomb tactic tbh

#

sniper didn't even attack the gorgon once

brisk flax
#

yeah and this sort of plays into what I was talking about earlier re: comps and matchups

#

a pyro (an ultra at that) and a veteran demolisher are going to find a lot to sink their teeth into against a close-range comp

#

if someone was bringing, idk, a paracausal HMG everest to the party, I imagine things might have played out markedly differently

smoky bluff
#

the sniper did took damage from Vorpal Gun due to attacking a player who was left behind thanks to a hornet Lock/Hold Javalin while the gorgon was brawling it out with the pyro

brisk flax
#

Bolster Network is honestly a very good pick against Gorgon comps

smoky bluff
#

however, with the technique i showed, the sniper had hard cover and was able to dodge one of the vorpal guns. If it wasn't it'd had died

#

Assault also gotten a very good Micro-Missile Barrage, hitting all of them but the everest succeeded

#

Whenever i try running an artillery, I usually flood the battlefield with defenders so they become the chewtoy for the players instead of the artillery. I'm glad to see it working very well

brisk flax
#

yeah that's basically how I try to leverage artillery a lot of the time, it's why Solstice Rain combat 3 (the rainmaker fight) is set up the way it is where the rainmaker is screened by a Sentinel and a Hive with a Specter to pull peoples' attention

#

the bombard is probably the most "set it and forget it" artillery unit strictly by virtue of its range + arcing meaning you can park it somewhere across the map and just let it shoot

#

but particularly in the rebake, which has refactored range bands, artillery is going to want to have screening support to function

smoky bluff
#

Sniper performed pretty good without a support, if i was up against a Gorgon again with a sniper comp, I think I might run a priest

#

Priest Sniper comps might actually be goated, hold on?

#

Yes, horus will fear the bullet that'll pierce all

#

Commander Priest Bolster network and Sniper. The perfect Horus Hunters

opal folio
brisk flax
#

Mmmmm, I think it's a little more variable at this point

#

Shift Sights as mentioned seems like a strong contender from an action economy and flexibility perspective, and I think that Deadeye has some pretty strong potential as well

opal folio
#

shift sights looks very very good i will say

#

i'm definitely gonna run 2 snipers the next time i run them.

smoky bluff
#

Moving target and shift sights are both very strong action economy optionals

#

I like it a bit better because it's less visible and expected than moving target and so players usually line up for me to change moving target very nicely

oak hornet
#

It's gotten to the point that I just bait players with a Hive or a Rainmaker and have other NPCs either harass them or go handle the objective while the players dogpile onto some poor guy way in the back.

brittle cipher
#

Yeah when I ran rebaked Kiros I made sure everyone knew that while it did say "Operator [K]" on the tooltip, the [K] was very much load-bearing and this wasn't the same Range Yes/Mobility Yes/Accuracy Yes operator we all know and loathe

wheat mortar
#

defensive grapple + climber on sniper is such a great combo

tame obsidian
#

that is the units identity, tbh lmao

#

a sticky bug that cna sit anywhere and plock away

#

also, seeing as how the discussion is about the Sniper, I'd like to ask about this:

image.png
#

characters that did not move their speed or more

#

what does 'or more' mean

#

I'm reading this as: A character must move their full speed to avoid getting hit with what is essentially a free lock on for the Sniper

indigo oasis
#

However idk if, say, a Nelson who uses Skirmisher twice and only uses 3 of its standard move (totaling to 5 spaces) would be safe

young turtle
#

meaning stuff like skirmisher and whatnot counts

indigo oasis
#

And speed halving effects like difficult terrain counts against it I presume?

#

Meaning if you have 5 speed and use it all to move 3 spaces in difficult terrain, you’d need to boost to move an extra 2 to be safe?

tame obsidian
#

I thought as much, the 'or more' bit just confused me. Could a better wording be something like: '-characters that did not move a number of spaces equal to their speed during their turns.'

tame obsidian
#

Is Difficult Terrain the only effect that can half Speed?

#

Surely there's an NPC that does that

#

aside from just hitting them with Immobilised

smoky bluff
tame obsidian
#

If any PC decides to manually climb over terrain while in range of a Sniper, I am questioning a lot more things

#

I giggled

image.png
#

(on the Veteran template)

indigo oasis
#

Anyway that means Zheng is surprisingly good against snipers

#

… why would that be surprising it’s always been good against snipers

tame obsidian
#

A fist to the face is always good against artillery types, who knew

valid plaza
#

words to live by

image.png
smoky bluff
#

Zheng Energy

tame obsidian
#

Also another question about Sniper, specifically Moving Target.

image.png
#

Does this ignore the loading trait

brittle cipher
#

No

vale crescent
#

Zhengergy

tame obsidian
#

So it's flipped the script with the CRB version, is what I'm getting. Cause that one reloaded on reaction and fired on it's turn. This one reloads on it's turn and can fire on reaction (if you take MT, which I dunno if I will cause Grapple is goated with extra sauce)

#

(and no, not grapple the melee attack)

brittle cipher
#

Yeah, "moving target gives 100% gun uptime" was deemed undesirable. Now they have to manually reload, can only shoot their mark with MT, and the character can still give up the move to stifle MT

rose hamlet
#

Planning a one-two session on Saturday, this is what I plan to run at the moment:
||```
One-Two Punch
Combat 1: Control
Initial:

  • 2x Snipers (Defensive Grapple)
  • 1x Veteran Knight (Sweeping Blows)
  • 1x Hive (Solipsis Swarm)
  • 4x Striker Grunts (Assault Rifle)
    Reinforcements:
  • 1x Veteran Knight (Sweeping Blows)
  • 1x Hive (Solipsis Swarm)
  • 4x Striker Grunts (Assault Rifle)

Combat 2: Extraction
Reinforcement pool:

  • Operators (Deniable Asset)
  • Squads (Field Commander: RATELO)
  • Brisk Veteran Demolishers (Hullcracker, Heavy Tread)
  • Controller-Type Grunts
||Knight is my “compelled duel” defender aiming to provide lock ons on hit for the snipers. RATELO is squad kit for creating a zone of “threat expansion” for the operators. Brisk is me voiding the Demolisher warranty and setting their speed to 3.

I will be using some custom rules for Structure/stress, “overcharge rerolls” instead of extra attacks, “Aid” actions to split Stabilize action costs between characters, and special lift/drag rules that will keep the squad from being a passively contesting tarpit.||
#

There’ll be a lot of warranties voided in this game of blackjack and homebrews but hopefully I’ll nab some actionable feedback regardless

tame obsidian
ancient forge
fringe peak
#

so comparing this to crb sniper, there's a lot less focus on moving target and alot more focus on sniper's mark obviously, forcing players to use cover smartly...which is good!

spice aspen
#

hey, um- is this an appropriate place to report LCP issues? the Ontolotactical Array from ultra seems to be tagged with recharge instead of limited

indigo oasis
#

It's pinned in the thread

spice aspen
#

ah, perfect. thanks

brisk flax
#

suffering from success

bold crystal
#

it needs to be less cool! less cool! teehee

surreal zenith
#

lol

wise creek
#

Why else would people join up to pilot a mech if the mech wasn't cool at least

oak hornet
#

the reason it looks cool is to attract people into buying a total shitbox

wise creek
#

all of r&d's funding went to form and none of it went to function

brisk flax
#

The Assault isn't even that bad, is the thing!

ancient forge
#

Trying to think of a mech that looks like it’s shit even when it’s fresh off the factory floor and all I can come up with is humanoid cybertruck

valid plaza
#

the Assault is the toyota corolla of mech combat

brisk flax
#

there's a kind of weird persistance to the idea that NPCs are meant to be categorically inferior mechs to PC stuff that I'm not sure how to actually correct

tranquil granite
brisk flax
#

like, an Assault NPC is a T-72 tank to the Everest's Abrams or something

#

This isn't really the case

#

NPCs are game-mechanically weaker purely as a matter of design principle (they aren't meant to last more than one fight, PC mechs are), this doesn't mean a standard Assault NPC is 75% shittier than a PC mech because it only has 1 structure

#

An Assault can just BE an Everest or whatever, it's just not one that matters beyond that one fight

tranquil granite
brisk flax
#

like it COULD be a factor of both

#

"what do these NPCs represent diegetically" is left extremely up to the GM

#

is a Scourer a Sherman or is it a knockoff thereof etc

#

but broadly speaking, Lancer doesn't really position the players as inherently superior in terms of logistics

#

you aren't always fighting people who are deficient in some infrastructural/technological sense

valid plaza
#

the flavor text in the core book for the various NPC archetypes feels like it could do a good job of dispelling that notion if people sat down to read it, i think. the ones that name specific manufacturers are like... i mean i can't speak for anyone else but none of these to me read "these are all piles of junk that anything from the big 4 will smash easily"

brisk flax
#

it's kind of another facet of the Grunt Framework Problem

#

what is a grunt, diegetically

#

some people seem to think that it's a mech made out of cardboard

#

like "yeah we built a mech made out of onehitpointonium"

valid plaza
#

lol

#

the universal recipients of lucky shots

fierce night
#

I do think that while, on paper, the NPC mechs are much worse, it doesn't feel as dramatic in play, even factoring the lack of structure. npcs with structure can feel very tanky

brisk flax
#

some people were genuinely very unhappy that an Assault had a gun that could just do 6 flat damage on hit, or why does this NPC get this funky special ability and there's no PC equivalent, I thought the PCs were supposed to be elite superior special protagonists

fierce night
#

I do tend to run factions that have their own lines of mechs to justify perceived differences without having to do work, but it rarely comes up

#

another thing that's very much something I spotted when I pored over all the books and just settled on "PCs and NPCs do not scale the same" yeah, he does 6 damage with the gun that for you does d6, but you have 4 full
healthbars.

tranquil granite
#

PCs just being exceptional pilots putting ordinary gear to great use certainly feels a lot cooler than the other way around.

fierce night
#

in play, the mechs bash each other a few times and then they explode, in an amount of time that feels about right for a mech bashing

tranquil granite
#

The fact that individual NPCs can do about as much (or sometimes more) damage than PCs also means you can just slap some templates on for extra structure and you've got something that feels much closer in strength to a player.

#

As for grunts, I like that the rebake grunts are both more fragile and less capable than other NPCs. Makes the idea of them being a cheap, low-cost unit more believable.

fierce night
#

I think the big numbers make them feel scary. I quite often get a player recoiling when I scuff off a structure in a few hits.

#

I dislike core book grunts intensly. The rebake grunts look good

tranquil granite
#

Agreed.

#

To me, the bespoke grunts are this:

fierce night
#

Something I'm just going to throw out there is something I saw in a different system. (This isn't something I think the grunts need, or anything like that, it's just a cool mechanic that I liked that I want to leave in the channel)

#

so I think this was in a 4e module, or possibly it's a Strike NPC thing, but the idea is that the system has mook type enemies that die in one hit, but it also has chunkier mooks that have a damage threshold on them

#

If you met the threshhold, instant death. If you didn't meet the threshhold you'd put a bloodied marker on them (which normally happened at 50% hp for a normal guy), and then any further damage killed them

#

so you'd see enemies that had just a bit of sticking power against average hits, but would still evaporate to something big, without the overhead of tracking full HP

tranquil granite
#

That's an interesting concept. I could see something like that working for Lancer grunts.

#

Something along the lines of a Limited 1 system that lets the grunt survive a hit, but only if the attack was affected by cover or had its damage reduced.

brisk flax
#

it's definitely an implementation I think is interesting, but one I feel can get a little too bookkeep-y when grunts are used in clusters

vale crescent
#

Book keeping wise I think it isn't too hard to set an NPC as 2 HP, 1 if it's "bloodied", 2 if it's full HP

ancient forge
#

Sounds slightly more complicated than Mob type npcs in Icon. Those just treat any single amount of damage as one “hit,” and take two hits to defeat; no damage threshold on them

tame obsidian
trail pivot
#

tbh i just made the Squadron to capture the "Swarm of guys" aesthetic that people tend to want from grunts while keeping them like, manageable and reasonable.

#

and in that sens,e it led me to the design principle of "it's one npc's thats a bunch of guys" so it's still threatening, and still customizeable, but none of the stats change except for the save target and a uniform and slight increase in HASE

brisk flax
#

Grunts are one of those things that I think really emphasizes the importance of "are you looking for narrative or mechanics out of this"

#

If you want STRCTLY the narrative then that means you can go with anything from Squad-style "one NPC is actually a bunch of guys" to just straight up reskinning a conventional NPC as "actually a few guys at once"

#

Mechanically, the question becomes whether you want multiple independent bodies pulling fire in different directions, if you want a single body, the rules and implementations thereof, etc

potent jasper
#

quick aside, should the seeder's fascam evaporate when the seeder dies or do players just gotta hold that

brisk flax
potent jasper
#

oh lmao nice

brisk flax
#

Some things that fall into category 2 will also expire when the NPC dies, but it has to specifically say so

neon blaze
# brisk flax It persists

feeling completely validated in my play now of putting it instantly on the holdout point the second everyone left to go eat grunts

#

scene isn't done and wont be until next week so holding on collected observations but yeah

#

its already chaos

potent jasper
#

on my side of things i really appreciate the engineer turrets only have 1 hp now

tame obsidian
#

Haven't had a chance yet, but Ill definitely be trying engineers because of that

spice aspen
#

gonna be potentially running a combat this weekend, depending on how fast we get through narrative. are there any particular NPC classes that could use a particular look? there's going to be enough Tomfoolery afoot that there'll be a good degree of chaos, but I figure it couldn't hurt to ask just in case I got something useful out of it

blissful lion
#

I think they said that sniper and seeder hadn't got a lot of testing so far?

brisk flax
#

I'll take anything really

twin reef
#

Yeah, NPC structure is a measure of a character's narrative importance, and a lot of people don't get that, because they're used to rules as physics.

small hamlet
#

VERY fun little pairing I've worked out for Gloom of Night

#

I'm presuming that since Stack Up says "an adjacent allied character can choose to move with them," it's voluntary movement and thus gets turned off by Immobilized

brisk flax
small hamlet
#

I'll write a little reminder not to use Cloaking Field except in emergencies

plucky field
#

ran a control sitrep, LL0, two Sagarmathas and three Everests versus:

2x Exotic Sentinels (blinkspace carver, bodyguard)
Elite Veteran Sniper (sharpshooter, moving target, blinding laser)
Elite Cataphract (electrified lasso, electromagnetic bola)
Veteran Barricade (titan-snare drone, mobile remote assemblers)
Commander Support (latch drone, quick march)

The players immediately prioritized the Cataphract when it started creeping towards their backline and although it survived til the last round it was locked down by a fragment signal dogpile most of the time, not much to say here. The new structure table allowing it to survive an AMR crit was a nice change of pace after persistent bad luck with NPC direct hits in my last campaign, but that's not new feedback I think

The Sentinels drove into the middle of the map to lock down the PC advance, and they died first for that but they covered the Barricade while it moved into a control zone and successfully protected the Cataphract when it got stunned, so they did their job. The new and improved Eye of Midnight got the players to think twice about moving into threat, which the old one did not in my experience, and Eye of Midnight + Bodyguard got the players to shift priorities away from the Bodyguarded ally entirely (to the Sentinel, which died, but still).

The rebake Barricade was a ton of fun and played a lot better than my past experiences with the original. Drag Down got a ton of mileage, being able to move the cube on demand was a game changer, and Remote Assemblers felt great as a veteran-tier ability. The Barricade kept the players out of one control point single handedly for most of the sitrep (only managing to get in on the last round by shooting each other with knockback weapons) and was a persistent menace to anyone trying to push down the center of the map (until it got fragment-signal dogpiled, went exposed, and ate a Cyclone Pulse Rifle for 33 damage, but what are you gonna do)

#

The elite veteran Sniper was the MVP of the sitrep and the Sniper’s Mark put the fear of structure damage back into some party members who were getting a bit too aggressive. I don’t have a ton of experience with the original Sniper, but Sniper’s Mark transferring on reload felt great and got the players to pull back and rotate out their frontliners more than once, the choice of one structure or ten damage was also nice, Moving Target was plenty menacing without the reload, and Sharpshooter was a fantastic control tool. I completely forgot about Blinding Laser, to be honest, but it was useful the one time I remembered I had it. This guy locked down the entire center of the map until his ablative meatshields died and the players got an opening to push him. The damage output felt a little mean, sometimes, when he was able to line up on someone who had already taken their turn, but they were the ones who ended their turns in an open field after seeing the full text of the Sniper’s Mark and Sharpshooter abilities in the chat log, so I don’t feel particularly bad about that.

The Support mostly just did its job without getting too much attention, but reloading on the restock drone was such a useful utility feature I forgot it wasn’t in the core book version until I checked just now. That ability made the Support feel a lot more like it had something productive to do with its turns when no one was taking damage nearby.

I was still using the pre-April 1st lcp, but I'm fairly certain none of the changes came up

brisk flax
#

yeah "ending your turn in the open versus a sniper" is a good way to get got

#

the CRB sniper can more easily ignore non-LoS blocking obstructions by just brute forcing it with accuracy, but you still don't really want to just be like "yep here I am"

vale crescent
#

Blinding laser is quite oppressive, but tbh I'm here for it... Didn't fully experience it as a player but when I thought hard on it when the GM applied it to the Caliban I was like "damn, that's bad"

I don't have much feedback outside of that for it...

(Unfortunately I have figured out that feedback to me comes in waves of when I remember)

brisk flax
#

Blinding Laser is something I wouldn't mind getting more feedback on because I see how it could potentially be oppressive, Slowed is something that doesn't show up as often in the NPC roster for a reason

#

A big part of it is that applying Sniper's Mark is a thing that nominally requires a Full Action of some sort to do, either on its own or via reloading. There are ways you can get around that in a more condensed fashion, like Moving Target, Shift Sights, or ally-facilitated reloading, so the question is going to become "does this become actually oppressive in a negative way"

vale crescent
#

I see it as quite potent, but it's tied to a full action so it's not too bad. It's not like enemies can apply slowed via invade. But I won't be surprised if it's rather swingy as it can either be a full action or a reaction or a protocol to turn a sniper into long range controller

#

But honestly... Sounds quite badass and just needs playtest because the ✨ vibes ✨ I'm getting mean nothingg because it isn't solid playtest data and I don't actually see too much as a bad things

wanton maple
brisk flax
#

discussion in gm corner does remind me, something else I could probably use some feedback on is the Specter w/r/t the new tactical cloak breakability

#

some folks busted it out previously and noted nobody really cared to go for it, and I haven't gotten much in the way of remarks since the change to a 1/round quick action

smoky bluff
#

I find it very hard to convince players to take the action to search it even when I reminded them serveral time

brisk flax
#

I mean at a certain point, "players don't want to do the thing" isn't really anything new or anything I can work with

smoky bluff
#

although it sort of understandable, they did have a swallowtail on the team

brisk flax
#

it's one thing if it's like "as a full action, this is too costly" hence the action refactoring, but "we will never do X, ever" is kinda like, okay, sure

#

if you have anti-invis gear then obviously you aren't going to need to use it

indigo oasis
#

The thing about Search is that nine times out of ten you don’t need it

#

You could take a quick action to search, but there’s many complicating factors like Anti-Hide Tech, AOEs, or straight up just walking up to a guy, Nd then there’s the fact you can just target someone else. That, and Search requiring LOS makes it only really useful to melee characters going up against Invisible or Soft Cover targets.

#

And after all of that, you can still fail, and the target could always just hide again, or you could wait for them to act and reveal themselves, or clear their soft cover or invis in some way

#

There’s almost always something better you can do- it’s not a bad option but it’s like Disengage: you’d rather have it around but you rarely need it around

#

And this is coming from “#1 hide lover GM”

brisk flax
#

look, to be honest I'm familiar with the arguments against "do literally anything but attack," and I'm not really interested in relitigating them here

indigo oasis
#

I constantly advertise the Search action when relevant and it’s never been used by my players

indigo oasis
vague jay
#

i nod my head

brisk flax
#

people ask "what would you like tested," that's something I would like tested

#

it's been tested before, it got feedback, I made changes based on that feedback

vague jay
#

kai

#

what opps do you desire tested most

brisk flax
#

so I would like more feedback on the post-change version

vague jay
#

i am going to be running a oneshot combat soon

brisk flax
#

"my players didn't use it" is, in a sense, feedback, but it's also not very useful

vague jay
#

i will do as I can to get useful information

brisk flax
#

so specific things that I would be interested in seeing some feedback on are:

#

1). Operators. With all due respect to Kukri, I would like to get some broader perspectives than one table
2). Snipers, which have largely been focused down in most playtests and haven't gotten much of a chance to do anything, OR there's been confusion regarding how things like the Sniper's Mark works which have resulted in inaccurate assessments
3). Specters, in regards to the Tactical Cloak and its in-built "shut down" option
4). Ultras just sort of in general, there's a lot of stuff there, lots of different bits of things, this could go any number of ways

#

Some people have suggested the rebake is more hostile to melee/close-range comps and I'd be interested in hearing if this sentiment is felt by other groups as well

vague jay
#

so, what I'm going to do is I am going to run a Gauntlet for 4 players, once with basegame NPCs, once with Rebake NPCs

#

take notes on how the changed version feels, maintaining the same opfor both times

#

I will slip in these as my damage choices

brisk flax
#

oh also one thing that would be helpful: the revised damage tables

vague jay
brisk flax
#

I got some feedback on those a while back and made some modifications thereof

indigo oasis
brisk flax
#

at the moment, the provisional changelog isn't really all that big compared to previous drafts

#

which is a sign that things tend to be gearing down

brisk flax
#

for example, snipers PLUS operators may be a bit artillery-heavy

#

etc

#

the "run a fight twice, CRB vs Rebake" is an interesting conceit

indigo oasis
#

Any Sniper or Operator Optionals that have been less tested than others?

brisk flax
indigo oasis
#

I’ll be sure to use those ones then- they seem fun!

brisk flax
#

Deadeye specifically is a little more of a specialized optional, in that it may not come up much against certain comps, as it's intended much more as a sort of "you can't hunker down in place" thing, but also in that it broadens out the Sniper's portfolio to be less reliant on Sniper's Mark

indigo oasis
#

I wonder how combining Deadeye with Moving Target would go… I’ll save that for Tier 2 tho

brisk flax
#

Deadeye is in large part a "you just want to shoot targets of opportunity raw" sort of thing

#

if someone doesn't sufficiently move, then they essentially "mark" themselves

indigo oasis
#

And also Zheng

#

Zheng makes things difficult

rose hamlet
#

Halfway through a 2-combat session, wanted to give a quick update:

PCs (LL3):

  • Melee Striker Empakaai
  • Hacker Minotaur
  • Hacker Goblin
  • Support Lancaster

Combat 1:
Control (homebrew), over after 3 rounds + 1 PC turn
Initial:

  • 2x Sniper (deadeye)
  • 2x Veteran Knight (Sweeping Blows, Vet: Self Repair) (mine)
  • 2x Striker Grunt (Assault Rifle)
  • 1x Hive (Solipsis Swarm)

Reinforcements after 2 rounds:

  • 1x Veteran Knight
  • 1x Hive
  • 2x Striker Grunt

Map was height 6. Snipers started climbing the walls and got on the ceiling, able to shoot most things clearly unless they were behind bigger cover (Used a mod to figure out obstructions/cover). Deadeye procced each time I fired the AMR since no one was moving due to it being control. 1 Sniper marked Empakaai; got jammed to slow them down, but then got off a clean AMR shot for 1 structure. 2nd Sniper struggled to get a clear shot on Minotaur, Minotaur dropped prone to avoid structure damage. Shot still hit, but Mino had 18 HP and didn't care. Overall the Snipers felt disruptable and manageable at 2-count

image.png
vale crescent
#

So budgeting for the rebaked grunts, are there any recommendations

#

Playing against 5 players in a double budget sitrep

#

Book I'm running says "2 Grunt berserkers with juggernaut and 2 grunt archers", I originally planned on swapping these with Legionnaires but it could be a good opportunity to swap them with grunts... As converting to grunts would drop their speed and damage output, does it sound wise to people to replace it with "3 Melee striker grunts + 3 Ranged striker grunts"

#

Or keep it at 2/2

#

Actually, I'll keep it to 2/2... They look like they still hit quite damn hard and the melee types are capable of MOVEMENT

rose hamlet
#

from what I ran today at least

neon blaze
#

I'm currently running 4 per and frankly yeah, I think you can lean on them a bit thicker than you would normally

rose hamlet
#

I ran 4x total Striker Grunts on the above control (2 in main, 2 in reinforcements) and they had a presence but not a huge one

vale crescent
#

Ok

#

Because the combat is 2 Grunt Berserker, 2 Grunt archer As main forces then the same as reinforcements. 3/3 of both :P

rose hamlet
#

Combat 2 info:

Extraction (basically as-written but on a 16x16 map)

NPCs deployed:
End of Round 1: Brisk Veteran Demolisher (Hullcracker, Heavy Tread, Speed 3), 2 Controller Grunts
End of Round 2: Operator (Deniable Asset), Squad (RATELO from Squad Kits)
End of Round 3: Operator + 2 Controller Grunts, + another 2 as I realized that I let the Minotaur kill the first 2 grunts with Heat despite their "buffer"

Summary: I ran this BADLY. I had a similar issue when I ran an Escort on a small map where I didn't bring in Reinforcements quickly enough. For small maps, I need an initial wave start of Round 1 for Extraction, for certain, plus larger waves in general. As a result, players were able to wrap it all up in 3.5 rounds (of which 1 was the customary "setup round" for Extraction). That all said, here's what I got:

Demolisher popped in close to the Objective, immediately moved to contest. It was threatening, but Minotaur Folded Space on it to let the Lancaster steal away with the objective. Heavy Tread was cool though, and Hullcracker had potential but "missed". I forgot to use Limitless to reroll its first Demo Hammer attack (personal houserule, felt like a fool for forgetting) but it landed the second attack vs. the Empakaai (the Emp saved).

Controller Grunts didn't get much action; the one that did get to act managed to knock away the Lancaster from the Objective with Destabilize for minor disruption. Forgetting Reinforced Systems didn't do me any favors, but ultimately the lack of presence was more due to my poor running of the sitrep.

Operator didn't have much chance to shine; only 2 Operator turns overall. One managed to scrape the Goblin once for Reliable 3; the other made a hail mary to contest the objective. Neither died by the end, and thus didn't use Deniable Asset

image.png
#

Overall I kinda view this one as a wash. I definitely wanna run it again with the same NPC comp.

rose hamlet
# rose hamlet Halfway through a 2-combat session, wanted to give a quick update: PCs (LL3): -...

More on this: Hive Swarm dealt some damage and discouraged the Minotaur from standing next to their objective (a small victory). Solipsis Swarm would've done more if the first Hive didn't choose to 1v1 the Insulated Lancaster, whoops. Players liked the 1 swarm limit though.

Striker Grunts felt good for getting into the fight with their Limited 1 dash. They were far from oppressive; I only used 4 total (going off the low-end "0.5 of an NPC" estimate in the Rebake PDF) but felt I could've gone to 6 or 8 without issue. I admit I wasn't looking forward to tracking their critical damage, but it didn't come up and I was aware of the effect every time I attacked. So it's probably fine

#

One note: Players were curious what the intended interaction for Sniper's Mark is with HOROS 2: False Idol. It didn't properly come up in play, but I argued that if it did, since False Idol doesn't force the Sniper to redirect its attack, only that it can't choose to attack the Idol'd PC, Sniper's Mark doesn't help it. @brisk flax what would you have ruled?

#

Overall I liked the Snipers a lot. running 2x didn't feel oppressive even though I pulled some "ceiling bullshit". PC controllers felt potent in delaying their damage.

#

Oh, important note: I was using a modified Structure Damage result for PCs that let them choose between Brace Downside or System Trauma. This likely could’ve caused some reduced “fear of God” in the Sniper’s structure damage, but overall I think the players respected the Sniper’s Mark regardless

brisk flax
#

The same would apply to someone using, idk, the Kutuzov's core power to put a "you can't attack this guy" wall between someone and the sniper

spice aspen
#

does the sniper's mark's preventing attacks from being redirected/forced to miss/etc apply to lich's soul vessel?

brisk flax
#

Soul vessel isn't a forced miss or a redirect

#

like I get that there's historically been a lot of "how does house guard work" type questions, but unless it's something that forces an attack into a miss (like Noah, which says "the attack misses") or redirects an attack elsewhere (like camus' razor, which says "you become the target instead," overriding the normal targeting by force-changing it), then it's probably not going to interact with sniper's mark in that way

#

soul vessel is pretty explicitly "the lich takes the attack, but gains immunity to it"

#

Glitch Time is an example of a redirect, as it's essentially "the lich forces the attack to now target the lich rather than the original initial target"

spice aspen
#

gotcha, alright

spice aspen
#

beepity. here's some Stuff collated from my players and myself, throughout a fight that we're not quite through with yet. a lot of the NPC classes here had some pretty wild homemade stuff since this is going in inside a metavault, but there's still some usable tidbits here, so:

image.png image.png
#

I hope this can be a little helpful in some way. one of the PCs remarked that this encounter has made them fully embrace the rebakes compared to the vanilla designs, so, you can mark that one as a win giggles

#

I'll likely have to more input next session (which may be in a few weeks, we'll see) as we wrap up the fight and I use some of the other things, but time will tell

#

also I can't edit images so I'll just put an addenda here: looking back on what I wrote, I don't think I chose the right wording when I described Blind as a weak option -- it's moreso that I'm unsure what a good time to use it is, compared to Witch's other techs. I may just not be good at judging the opportunity costs. input is welcome here

brisk flax
#

like it seems like a pretty simple metric I guess, but that's essentially what Blind is good at

#

is this guy a big direct fire ranged attack guy? what happens if he just doesn't get to do that

bold crystal
#

since it's a save you can also mitigate with impair on top of lockon

brisk flax
#

or hell, tech attackers, whatever

#

"when do you use blind" to me is, and I say this non-judgmentally, kind of a weird question because blind is in a lot of ways a slightly less potent jammed

#

it has some more workarounds to it, but ultimately it's one of the game's stronger "you just sort of suck until this goes away" debuffs, compounded with not being able to be cleared by the normal vectors

valid plaza
#

yeah i bet the aforementioned sherman would've really hated it

spice aspen
#

my main di- oh, oven, one sec

brisk flax
#

also of note, with the new danger zone clause appended to blind, you can use the heat that the attack itself inflicts to push the target into the DZ and force them to make the save with difficulty

#

because of simultaneous effect timing rules

spice aspen
#

I didn't even think about that. damn

brisk flax
#

so in this particular case, there's more of an impetus for the witch to look both at A). who would hate having LoS restricted to adjacency only and also B). who is close to being pushed into the DZ

spice aspen
#

well shit. I guess my question has been answered

brisk flax
#

and I mean the witch has a base ST of 12 which is "high" by most any standards

spice aspen
#

it might also be possible that in this particular fight it's just not the best option a lot of the time because it's juggling a lot of smaller control and support effects to set stuff up for its allies, which is naturally not a problem with the class itself. every class has options that are good in different scenarios kitteehee

brisk flax
#

add a difficulty on top of that and players are looking at like a 15-16 ST

#

Blind is in a weird spot because the CRB version is just a direct attack/application on a quick action but it's also on a recharge, and I strongly suspect those two are linked factors

#

It's notable that most other applications of blind you can find elsewhere in the NPC roster also tend to be of the "attack, then a save happens" variety

spice aspen
#

yeah. I'm willing to grant too that a good bit of this is my own getting mentally stuck halfway between my experiences with the CRB variants and my messing with the new ones; old habits are hard to break even if I'm making an effort

#

s'why I figured I'd ask for insights. I figure the worst case scenario is I ask what is outwardly a silly question and it helps me work with the toolset better afterwards. only thing I've got to lose is my pride :P

brisk flax
#

I do think that it's a case of, like, it's not an always food because I think if it was it would be easy to tip over into feeling unfun, as mentioned it's kind of a quasi-Jammed, so the refactoring here is it's more of an action commitment but you always have it in your pocket rather than "I used this too early and my recharge dice suck"

#

the opportunity to use it is something GMs will probably need to be more mindfully aware of, things like "ah this guy is setting up heavy gunner stuff, lol nope" or "today I will make this nuclear cavalier asura heavy weapon guy miserable"

spice aspen
#

absolutely yeah. the rebakes so far have definitely felt like there's a lot more like... how do I put it

#

I have had to strategize more and think more about my compositions and how I use them because the features lend themselves moreso to synergies compared to some of the CRB's super frontloaded individual classes. which I do think is a good thing, mind

brisk flax
#

I won't say that hasn't been part of it, yeah

#

like to be clear I don't think CRB NPCs are, idk, "easy mode" or GMs are lazy or whatever

#

but I do think there's more meat on the bone if the GM has to do some tactics as well

spice aspen
#

oh very much so. like running a core book operator with its range 20 gun that has +2 accuracy is just inherently going to be a much less strategically involved task than running the rebake operator that actually has to think about its positioning

bold crystal
#

as a player I'm just more fond of how these play, honestly. and not that you can't still make a guy that just combos with themself, but it's more interesting, imo, if there's a bunch of different NPCs that all form an interlocking engine of pain.

brisk flax
#

re: snipers and not really having a way to compress reloading, yep, that's 100% on purpose

#

I'm even someone who has in the past argued that people OVERestimate CRB moving target because you CAN just give up the fuckin move and it makes it fizzle

#

like just stop moving, dumbass

#

then boost

#

but with all that said, it's also very clearly an extremely strong, and arguably strongest, tool in the CRB sniper's arsenal because anything that lets you compress action econ is always going to be really strong, that's where overcharge loopers and reloading loopers come from

#

valk has mentioned it before, and I'm inclined to agree, that one of the big problems that artillery units out of CRB lancer have right now is it feels really fucking shitty to use multiples of them at once

#

you bring two assaults to a fight and that's like, okay, solid general striker core

#

you bring two snipers or rainmakers or whatever, you're basically kicking the players while they're down

#

real "fuck you" hours

#

part of it is that several artillery units have ways and means of punching deceptively above their ostensible weight (the missile pod/javelin combo, moving target cycle shooting, etc) and then some of it is just "why is the operator statted like this"

#

so one part of the rebake is definitely looking to refactor things such that multiple artillery units or, like, an Elite whatever, isn't an outsized threat

#

the one NPC that I can't really say has gotten this as effectively is the bombard, and tbh I'm not really sure how you'd do that

bold crystal
#

some sort of innate high-angle fire+has to reload if it doesn't do high-angle, maybe. but that kind of gets complex for a base NPC(and would be a, uh, huge change) and I'm not sure it'd even solve the Two Artillery Problem

#

and I don't think you can really reduce any of like. damage, range, blast, without basically just deleting what the bombard actually does, so.

#

that's mostly just thinking out loud, excuse me.

brisk flax
#

yeah no I agree

#

fundamentally the bombard is kind of The Platonic Artillery Unit

#

it has very clear function and counterplay, it does the thing it's made to do, but also if you made it harder to use or weaker it would I think very quickly start to unravel

bold crystal
#

yeah pretty much.

brisk flax
#

the bombard basically exists in a realm of "are your players aware enough not to stand in the fire, y/n"

#

if they are, its threat drops off

#

nobody cares about "shoot one guy at massive difficulty for 5/7/9 damage"

bold crystal
#

5 damage to one guy is still, well, 5 damage.

brisk flax
#

like yeah that's damage but it's not "fear of god" damage

smoky bluff
#

until you swarm the players with 8 grunts

#

friendly fire time

bold crystal
#

possibly the base damage at higher tiers could be lower, but I frankly haven't interacted with a tier 3 bombard to tell how scary '9 at difficulty but +6' is, uh, ever.

trail pivot
#

t3 bobmard basically shoots at "will reliaably hit normal numbers instead of -2" but its something i've been revisiting the math on for our Bombard Alternative,

twin reef
#

I'm thinking about how, in the current Lancer meta, Hull and Engineering are straight up better than Agility or Systems, for several reasons.

  • Not everything that deals damage or heat goes through Evasion or E-Defense.
  • Even if you max out Agility, you'll eventually get hit. Also Reliable exists.
  • Hull and Engineering let you last longer (more Repairs and Limited uses).
    So this means as NPCs go up in attack rolls, most PCs don't go up in defenses, so they get hit more, which reinforces the need to invest in those stats. I suspect this is something that a mere NPC rebake can't fix, though.
vale crescent
#

Disagree

#

The NPC rebake doesn't fix it but makes it better

#

I'm sitting back and realising the tools to to "counter" agility builds are much less prevalent

#

Enemies now which have reliable are reactive. Smart weapons don't hit as hard and enemies don't hit as much

#

So to counter agility builds, you need to actually play smart which makes agility builds better

smoky bluff
#

for systems though it not something that can be easily address

vale crescent
#

Like, i have 2 full agility people on my party and it's hard to "punish" them like you can with vanilla sitreps

vale crescent
indigo oasis
indigo oasis
indigo oasis
rose hamlet
#

But yeah. That’s what I’d do, but I respect folks who don’t wanna do that

tranquil granite
rose hamlet
#

Sure, I don’t know. I’m just pretty sure that Bombard’s extra damage is the primary contributor to making it dangerous in pairs

#

Like, if that’s how it’s perceived at least

#

I should run some Double Bombards soon just to see

tranquil granite
#

A cluster strike is supposed to saturate the target area. Rather than being stronger, it just guarantees that it'll do at least some damage, which helps offset it being inaccurate.

neon blaze
#

thats typically where i have chaffed with it in the past, weirdly enough

rose hamlet
#

Tier scaling or multi target scaling?

neon blaze
#

tier scaling

#

even if damage is something that often scales for NPCs, the problem is cluster munitions is multiplicative by design, so even adjusting the number by 1 has adverse knock-on effect

rose hamlet
#

Yeah that tracks

vale crescent
tranquil granite
#

CRB sniper, not rebake.

vale crescent
#

Ah fair

#

I mean

#

Lmao

#

"I'll take the damage so you don't structure!"
structures twice

neon blaze
#

at tier 1 the difference between 2 and 3 targets is fairly punishing but dealable; +2 damage and +4 damage. at tier 3 the difference is +4 and +8, which is a fairly big leap. of course the main damage goes up to, but if anything that means its dealing even more damage each time

#

this is in regards to core book bombard mind, even if i know the rebake bombard kept the scaling cluster munitions also

tranquil granite
#

I haven't tested the latter at higher tiers, but both the CRB and Rebake bombards seem like they outpace most other NPCs in terms of scaling.

neon blaze
#

earthshaker is probably the biggest difference in breaking the pacing of the core and rebake versions by forcing a reload if it gets used

#

but it is ultimately optional, so you can get away without it and rely on raw bombard cannon + cluster if you don't need the accuracy or area denial

#

so whether that actually works in practice, i 'unno

tranquil granite
#

It's optional, but given the way Player-facing mechanics and sitrep Control Zones encourage PCs to group up, in practice it's likely the Bombard will be able to target at least 2 PCs every time it attacks. I can't think of any time I've played Lancer where there weren't at least 2 PCs within Range 5 of eachother at any given time.

neon blaze
#

either way, its just an opinion in the end drawn from my experience of using and fighting bombards

vale crescent
#

I mean, what if bombard had an upper limit

neon blaze
#

i mean ironically, bombards already have an upper limit

vale crescent
#

Yeah well one that is actually achievable and not 24*damage (On square grid)

neon blaze
#

its called "player count" - its a soft limit, but it is a limit

vale crescent
#

Incorrect

#

Drones, other enemies

tranquil granite
#

^

neon blaze
#

yeah but that isn't a guarantee is more the point

#

what is a guarantee is you will have a fixed number of players

vale crescent
#

Yeye

#

But that differs across games

neon blaze
#

and thats largely why i feel cluster munitions scaling per target is kind of self-regulating as it is already, at least in my experience

vale crescent
#

Yeah

#

Are they the only NPC that gets better as player count increases

brisk flax
vale crescent
#

Surprisingly*

#

3 Players, it's quite easy to be distant to other players but it depends on your builds

neon blaze
#

if drones are in the mix - great. thats what they're there to also counter

if there are NPCs in the mix, then thats a trade off of potentially nuking your own guys in exchange for damage, which ironically can just lose you objectives for being reckless. its a risk

brisk flax
#

also that's a consideration to note, which is player counts are going to vary by group

vale crescent
#

Why are there so many NPCs I love so much but don't field enough 😭

tranquil granite
brisk flax
#

well there you go

vale crescent
#

Curious how bombards would fare if their gun was just outright loading all the time...

#

Give 'em a slight buff or smthn...

#

Should this be done? Probably not...

brisk flax
#

probably not good

neon blaze
#

otherwise though, yeah, scaling per target has never felt bad when i've played bombards

#

it both serves its job and kind of feeds into itself well

#

me and my players have taken far more issue with the exact number per scale its throwing out, especially in sillier situations

vale crescent
#

Wait I need to check something with the rebake bombard

rose hamlet
#

I’m hearing “run a tier 2 or 3 double bubble bombard comp and report back”

neon blaze
#

unironically yeah, basically

#

or if you have patience - run at tier 1, 2, and 3 respectively

#

unfortunately i lack said patience because i already have a game running

rose hamlet
#

I am not famed for my patience lol

neon blaze
#

but thats how i'd try and gauge it outside of whiteboard math

#

which still is indicative, just not tangible

#

1/2/3 targets is 5/7/9 at tier 1, 7/10/13 at tier 2, 8/12/16 at 3

#

(core book that is)

dire shadow
#

I have 2 tier 2 bombards in the control sitrep my players are just about done with and said bombards kept them on their toes without wiping the floor with them

#

They figured out “don’t group up in the control zones” but did not figure out “it’s more effective and you avoid lock-on when you get closer”

indigo oasis
#

And I’m not sure how that works out in play but it’s somehow fine by some wizardry

rose hamlet
#

Ah

indigo oasis
#

Like I have both used and seen bombard pairs in action, and they’re genuinely not that bad

tranquil granite
#

If I had to guess, the Inaccuracy is probably what's saving it. The Bombard's kit encourages it to hide behind cover, but attacking without LoS means it's suffering 2 Inaccuracy by default.

brisk flax
#

I think probably the only substantial major issue of double bombards is basically that you can get two shots off fairly bookended without the players having much of a chance to scatter between them, if you want to frame it that way

#

the counterplay to bombards is very clear, but it's something that can take several PC turns to really actualize

indigo oasis
indigo oasis
#

You remove a potential target that can be included in the blast radius as well as the damage bonus. With 2 targets At tier 1 that’s -4 damage and no free reload

tranquil granite
bold crystal
#

but then it has some issues actually, well, hitting

#

delicate balance.

tranquil granite
#

I forget where, but there's a piece of advice I read that says you shouldn't have Elites or Ultras take their turn back-to-back. The same goes for 2 regular NPCs of the same class, for the aforementioned reason.

indigo oasis
bold crystal
#

it is a rebake optional.

tranquil granite
#

I'd been meaning to ask about that, actually. Is it "hit each target in the area with the bombard cannon individually" or "apply the Blast 2 attack once per target"?

bold crystal
bold crystal
tranquil granite
#

Wording is a little weird, IMO. It should just say something like "The bombard attacks with the bombard cannon at the end of the round, the area increases to Blast 3."

indigo oasis
tranquil granite
#

No, we're talking about High-Angle Fire.

indigo oasis
#

Oh I forgot nevermind

tranquil granite
brisk flax
waxen sand
#

How does charged slash interact with the HHS-155 Cannibal? Can the ronin choose to increase the damage to half of 3d6 + 4, or does the charged slash only use the half of 2d6 + 4 default damage? I may be stupid

brisk flax
#

The one exception to this would be if a weapon has two different base profiles, like the Siege Cannon or something. In a case like that, the ronin would choose one profile

young turtle
#

God damn Ronin with charged slash against someone with a dd288 would hurt

#

yeouch

#

(as in, a charged 288)

#

I guess that's why you pick impaired instead in those cases

vale crescent
#

Pain

young turtle
#

That's why its a choice

#

just jam yourself if you fail

bold crystal
#

also, charged slash's damage isn't 'half weapon damage'. you take the full 2d6+4 if it hits your cannibal with it.

brisk flax
#

yeah the current version is full damage

#

that was changed a while back, so might want to check and see if you're up to date

twin reef
#

Wait, that's not deflect. O_o

young turtle
#

No it’s not

brisk flax
brisk flax
indigo oasis
#

Oh extrudite got changed a while back. I never noticed

indigo oasis
#

I run a rebake Ultra Industrial rebake Archer/Sentinel (both are cruel) with Puppet Crasher, Legion, Superior Construction, and a Wrecker. My body is never found.

manic sky
#

love the new capacitor discharge

manic sky
#

So I know this is in the CRB too, but I've been curious for a while. Why (in terms of the Design-Thought) does the Cataphract's Ram Cannon have Threat 2? It turns off its own reactions when it grapples, and it wants to be in a grapple. With how fast it is, I doubt it needs the one extra reach in most situations. Slash, should I not ask this question in this channel.

surreal zenith
#

it strikes me as spear/lance flavor that suits the Cataphract/cavalry aesthetic

manic sky
#

That does make sense...

trail pivot
#

it's also just common for melee npc's to have threat

#

the Berserker is a rare exception because it's both just fast, bulky, and has a very high burst potential

indigo oasis
#

Yeah but why threat 2 instead of threat 1 is the question- which was answered by Stepnix

#

I wouldn't say it's common for melee NPCs to have threat... is what I would say, but then I think only the berserker has Threat 1

brisk flax
#

The Cataphract is doing two things sort of, as a melee striker/controller: it's doing grapple stuff, sure, but more broadly the Cataphract is doing DISPLACEMENT

#

It is moving people out of position, yanking them this way and that, dragging them away, forcing them to move if they don't want to deal with Point-Defense Shield, etc

vale crescent
#

The other NPCs with threat 1 melee weapons. Their main thing isn't their melee

#

Sentinel sword, assault dagger, Bastion shield, etc

brisk flax
#

Giving it a Threat 2 melee weapon with Knockback is part of that

indigo oasis
#

The knockback is addmittedly a rebake addition however

brisk flax
#

It gives them a tool they can use outside of things like Impale to go "I'm going to move you thataway, fuck off"

brisk flax
#

like

#

I did both of those things on purpose

indigo oasis
#

I thought it was threat 2 in the core? EDIT: Yeah it is I double checked

vale crescent
#

Wait

#

Yeah cataphracts are Threat 2 CRB

brisk flax
#

ah yeah, okay

vale crescent
#

I need an enemy that weapon threat scales with tier /j

#

THreat 2/4/6

brisk flax
#

anyway that's basically what's up with it

indigo oasis
brisk flax
#

I want the Cataphract to be able to move people around and threat + KB is what goes with that

#

that's why it's not a very damage-heavy striker

vale crescent
#

My players hate cataphracts because an Elite cataphract stole theparty artillery once

brisk flax
#

it also plays into things like being able to curate point-defense shield

#

I do think that the grapple-ness of the Cataphract is something that's neat but also not, like, super critical to its identity

#

it's basically Impale and Electrified Lasso

#

I tend to view the Cataphract, even the CRB version, as more of a "move and attack" guy

vale crescent
brisk flax
#

dragging someone out of position is unquestionably a super powerful move for it, but also "do I maintain this grapple" is a real question

#

and a lot of the time the answer is "no I don't want this" even with point-defense shield giving it resistance

vale crescent
#

I like them because if you line the start of the movement up well, they can run right through the front line without triggering overwatch, dealing like 2 damage then running into the backline

#

They feel like a melee flier... That can't fly

indigo oasis
brisk flax
#

the CRB version can trend a little more damage heavy by stacking capacitor discharge on top of things and then just trying to max out that and trample with impale

#

plus it has multiattacking

#

just a very weird setup

vale crescent
#

Also

#

Line Jam

brisk flax
#

I mean that's controller-ish, just in a very "shoving a square peg through a round hole with a hammer" sort of way

brisk flax
# manic sky love the new capacitor discharge

re: this, my concerns with the last iteration of capacitor discharge is that I felt the effect was largely fine but I was having doubts about the tier-scaling thereof. Bringing it down to 2 heat feels "safer," and the flipside is that I broadened it out to both range and melee attacks within a specific perimeter

vale crescent
#

Range 1/2/3

manic sky
#

Yeah, I think it feels pretty solid. I wanna try one soon but I won't have a combat for a bit...

pulsar hound
#

Hey guys, we've updated the LCP with today's changes & some pending bugfixes.

If you find any issues, please submit them here for easier tracking.

GitHub
Release 1.18.2 - Master Document 1.4 & Bugfixes · Shteb/Kais-NPC-R...

A rather small patch, featuring changes from version 1.4 of the Rebake document and fixing some minor data issues.
Bugfixes

Ace: Added missing self-heat to Countermeasures
Ultra: Changed Recharge ...

spice aspen
#

thank you for fixing that thing with ontotactical array preen

blissful lion
#

I'm not sure if it's a bug or a formatting thing, but ever since v1.3 the pdf hasn't had the bookmark function. It was really useful when playing to just click a bookmark and go to the NPC's statblock. It's not really a huge deal since you can control-f search pretty easily anyway :3

spice aspen
#

to my knowledge, the bookmarks are done by eld in his spare time and he's been pretty busy lately so he hasn't had the time to do bookmarks for the updated versions, alas

#

that's just what i've gathered via anecdote and general osmosis though so I may be wrong on that

brisk flax
#

yeah that's just an eld thing

#

he does it at his own discretion

blissful lion
#

lit

soft ice
pulsar hound
#

You should be all good! Nothing new was added and no IDs were changed.

soft ice
#

Perfect, thanks!

#

If anyone else wants to use Lancer Weapon FX with the rebaked NPCs you can replace this file: modules/lancer-weapon-fx/scripts/weaponEffects.js

📎 weaponEffects.js
subtle nacelle
#

is there a PR for this in the works or?

soft ice
#

Yup, but I guess with Easter and stuff it wasn't big priority.

indigo oasis
soft ice
#

The file I posted above is an edited version of the file in the module to include the rebaked NPC weapons. The path I gave is relative to your Foundry Data folder. Where that is depends on you Foundry setup.

#

If you're using the Foundry app then you can right click on it in your task bar and select data folder.

#

The nodeJs version needs you to specify a data path, so it's whatever you set there.

#

Hosting services like Forge are a bit trickier as they have their own methods. But you should be able to manually upload a file somehow.

soft ice
twilit coral
#

Or if you make a GitHub for it I could make pull requests instead but that does maybe seem excessive for a single js file

#

Oh wait you already have a pr for the actual module

#

I see

soft ice
#

Yes, if that's approved that's where any issues should be reported to. Until then you could report them to me via the github, but just pinging me should be fine.

lean echo
#

quick question / feedback for Goliaths. im currently running OWS Combat 1. Pin -> Power knuckle seems a very effective combination as pin does not require the goliath to stay within range 2 to keep the effect, it just imobolizes both no save.
It feels odd thematically and mechanically

twilit coral
#

Similarish thing with lock/hold javelins on the hornet not preventing forced movement. Not an issue so to speak but just a disconnect w/ the fiction and mechanics. I say not an issue bc for lancer the game comes before the fiction and you can just come up w/ a diegetic reason that the javelin is still immobilizing you pretty easily.

#

Though for pin I think it might just break after range 2?

brisk flax
#

I'm not at my desk but are pin and power knuckle in the CRB meaningfully different from the rebake implementation

twilit coral
#

since it's an ongoing effect caused by a system with range 2. although maybe not idk

twilit coral
#

I was just bringing up lock/hold since it was on topic of fiction/mechanics, not as feedback or anything

brisk flax
#

Okay since they're identical I'm not sure I understand the question being asked

#

Do I plan to change pin? No

lean echo
#

valid, brought it up originally because it felt odd. ultimatly the "does this work" question is not one about the rebake

twilit coral
lean echo
#

fair i'm not aware of this combo ill throw the question in rules aswell. I ended up ruling it as it doesnt break the effect as pin specifies what does break it.

#

to a different channel weeeeeeee

bold crystal
#

webjaw snares do not break if you move the target off the snare; pin does not break if you move the target away from the goliath.

twilit coral
#

it might've been something else with execrate, apologies. Pinning spire maybe? idk isn't super important

bold crystal
#

(to be specific, excuse me, execrate makes things intangible which does break effects like webjaw; just pushing does not break those effects)

indigo oasis
bold crystal
#

yeah. it'd break Pin for sure.

indigo oasis
#

And Webjaw already mentioned my b

vale crescent
#

But would it break WW Pinning spire which is "This condition can't be removed any other way."

#

But is always a target for melee attacks, so an exacrated target can rematerialise, punch you then demateralise

indigo oasis
#

You’d need to ask #rules-questions bout that you already did

vale crescent
#

Yeah

#

It's just funny but off topic

indigo oasis
#

I’m big stupy today

twilit coral
#

As for feedback I ran a combat last week with

Tier 2
ACE (Full Throttle)
COMMANDER BASTION (Near-Threat Denial System, Military Discipline)
RAINMAKER (Seeker Volley)
SCOUT (Expose Weakness)
SEEDER (Grav Spike)
SITREP: King of the Hill (SotW)

Used bastion/seeder to create a safe zone for rainmaker to benefit from LoS effects. Aces acted independently, scout got focused t1 but it was just gonna do scout stuff, especially deal with PC invis.

  • The seeder rebake felt much better. Not having to fiddle with mines being hidden information was faster to deal with and gave the players tactical decisions to make instead of just getting surprise mined. Thermite mine is a cool addition, an especially threatening mine option when the PCs entered the danger zone. Damage reduction on grav spike felt fair, I was surprised by the damage output of it when I used the vanilla version.
  • Rainmaker's reduced range forced me to set up with safe zone much closer to the OZ to threaten it which better let the PCs engage with it. Still felt strong enough. Huntsman change didn't really come up since PCs don't have much armor. Javelin -> Skyhammer felt good, much easier to utilize, less mechanical overhead, and PCs can play around it much more than the back to back javelin -> knockback/grapple drag combo. I liked the seeker volley changes as well, less range, a touch less damage, more team interaction w/ lock on.
  • Bastion I'm mixed on. I like the changes, the shield weapon having less damage but applying prone and expanded protection granted by near-threat denial system. The latter vanilla system is especially weird to have on a defender since typically the idea is to encourage enemies to attack you, not dissuade them. On the other hand I still find friendly interdiction to be incredibly clunky. Like it is a strong system when it's active so I understand the hoops you gotta jump through but I don't like how it plays out. This could just be a taste thing, and maybe I should've used Stack Up or Fearless Defender, but I really dislike how much it discourages NPCs from moving around and how clunkily they must do so when they do.
  • Ace's missile launcher change is great, as I'm sure you've gotten plenty of people saying. As with a lot of other NPCs that got deactivation conditions for their thing, the changes to barrel roll gave the PCs good tactical decisions. For an NPC that already has a ton of mobility, shifting rapid response into the less frequent but more powerful full throttle felt good. More distinct to the ace and less spammable movement on an NPC that already has plenty.
  • Like I said, scout got blown up before it could do much besides apply lock-on once. The reduced accuracy on marker rifle seemed like a good change the one time I used it, mades it feel less auto-hit. I liked the idea of the other changes but didn't really get to try them out.
indigo oasis
#

Dang. I might actually buy it

twilit coral
#

It's effectively gauntlet except the OZ is just in the middle of the map and everyone starts on either side of the map

#

I mean not even just effectively, same 6 round duration, scored only at the end of 6th

brisk flax
brisk flax
smoky bluff
#

I like to think of friendly interdiction as a mechanic for the bastion and the guy that the bastion covers is just a bonus

#

which does remind me, Kai, what do you think of friendly interdiction use without an allied character adjacent to the bastion? is it necessary for it to function or can you use it even if there is no allied characters adjacent to the bastion?

twilit coral
#

I guess my ultimate feedback there is I'd prefer it if the effect were weaker but less clunky. But yeah maybe the bastion just isn't for me and I'll stick to the other defenders in my own games. I'll probably give it one last go with one of the mobility optionals at some point.

smoky bluff
brisk flax
#

it's not "you have to have someone to split the damage with" like the argonaut shield, it's just "the bastion and one adjacent ally get resistance versus one guy"

smoky bluff
#

might be best to specify it a bit more for friendly interdiction in the rebake file then because it suffers from the same issue to the CRB where it looks like it needs an allied character adjacent for it to activate

brisk flax
#

I mean the thing is, it doesn't actually look like that

smoky bluff
#

does it?

brisk flax
# 
it gain RESISTANCE to all damage dealt by one
character within line of sight.```
#

that is literally the wording used in the CRB

#

note it does not say anything about requiring an ally to function

smoky bluff
#

yeah i guess i did also rule it as it doesn't require an ally to function

brisk flax
#

if you take this exactly as it's written then frankly the interpretation that the bastion can just do this when it feels like it is the more obvious conclusion

smoky bluff
#

true

brisk flax
#

and lancer, broadly speaking, wants to be taken as written

#

now if someone wants to argue if this is the intent, they should go bug tom about it

#

to be honest, I'm a little tired of being the go-between for people who want a primary authoritative ruling on things they're unclear on but don't want to DM the guy himself, if their reaction is "but I don't want to bug tom," well, maybe that's a sign of something

#

from a purely "what does the actual wording say," it just straight up says "the bastion and a buddy get resistance"

#

like, if there was an ability that said "the [mech] and all adjacent allies gain resistance" nobody would be going "well all of that mech's allies have to be adjacent to it for that ability to work"

#

From a strict wording perspective, if the intent of Friendly Interdiction was to mandate an ally for it to work I would say it would need to be framed as:
The Bastion chooses an adjacent allied character, then the Bastion and that character gain resistance[...] etc etc

smoky bluff
#

yeah that make sense

manic sky
#

It's probably just from the name.

#

"Interdiction" sets up an expectation that it is interdicting.

brisk flax
#

funny story, the name DID actually change

manic sky
#

Did it? Hah. I wasn't around for beta time.

smoky bluff
#

from raise shield right?

brisk flax
#

it used to just be called Shield Wall

#

anyway, from a broader systemic level, I'm keeping the CRB wording because
A). I frankly don't feel like bugging tom about this stuff, my personal impression is that he kind of doesn't dig being asked to play rules sage on lancer at this point given that it's like 8+ years old, I don't mean that it really super annoys him, but tbh at a certain point you kind of don't want to be tied to something like that
B). By keeping the wording the same, people are free to continue running it how they prefer to run it at their table
C). My own personal interpretation (that the Bastion can use it independently) is supported by the extant wording anyway, so I'm not losing out on anything in that regard

manic sky
#

I haven't really ever read Bastion... the last time I used one, my Raleigh player walked up to it round 1 turn 1 and completely ruined its shit.

smoky bluff
#

I am a friendly interdiction manic and i will continue to preach of its power

#

you simply didn't friendly interdiction the Raleigh

#

watch as his epic burst of damage get reduced to pitful chip damage with the power of innate resistance

brisk flax
#

The thing about Friendly Interdiction is even in the generous interpretation (that the bastion gets to use it regardless of there being an ally) you have to choose a specific character to gain the resistance against, which means it's more like a heftier Type-3 Shield than the Drake's Argonaut Shield which grants blanket immunity to your chosen ally

smoky bluff
#

true

manic sky
#

I did not, no, but that's because no NPC had the opportunity to act prior to said shit-ruining.

smoky bluff
#

lol that is fair

brisk flax
#

this is why I'm pretty comfortable with the "literal rules-as-written" interpretation, if Friendly Interdiction was global resistance, I would probably take a much more restrictive hand with it

smoky bluff
#

ever since viper speed is gone i sort of miss pulling that sort of shit

vale crescent
#

But you did reword and and removed uncertainty on the wording around snipers mark (in cover vs has cover clarification)... did you only do that because it was an ability that the rebake already touched up?

indigo oasis
vale crescent
#

Aye fair

brisk flax
#

As noted, the literal wording already follows an interpretation which I ascribe to

#

other people are free to disagree with that, but there's no way I could reword it to better facilitate "this is how I run this" than the actual literal way it's already written

bold crystal
#

'up to one adjacent ally', maybe
(this is how magic the gathering words optional numbers of things; I'm not sure you actually want to reword it, but it's a way.)

prime urchin
#

Had a quick combat involving Operators. They felt fine, I even felt comfortable throwing 4 at my players in quick succession, the only question I have is their very high HASE across the board : I know it's a thing that was kept from CRB, but it still feels weird such a brittle NPC has +2/3/4 hull. Especially since the Assault only has +1/2/3 while being considerably tankier-feeling, even having some reason to try and do some grappling since they have a knife at least. It did hinder our Empaakai a fair bit, and allowed much more potent contesting of points (sitrep was Valk's control here -> #1254229800952922193 message).
So yeah, do with that what you want, I just thought I'd put it here just in case.

brisk flax
#

sounds like a positive outcome to me tbh

#

"why is this guy so good at getting out of scrapes" is, imo, a feature and not a bug

prime urchin
#

fair

#

If it had to be on any class, the operator is the one it makes the most sense to have it on. So if you're fine with it, well I can report that it indeed works

brisk flax
#

if anything, the rebake version has more HP than the CRB one

prime urchin
#

huh

#

didn't even notice

#

yeah ok, all good then. Only real problem was my players kept exposing themselves to kill the Operators they knew had deniable asset, to predictable results, but that's a them problem, so...

errant needle
#

So combat isn't over yet, so I'll save the overall results for that, but I felt that people would appreciate the Rebake Demolishor landing a solid hit on the PC Tortuga and punting them with Knockback 3 to set off three of the Seeder's mines at once.

#

Resulting in a double structuring.

errant needle
#

Adjacency on the Seeder mines is amazing

smoky bluff
#

just ran a LL3 gauntlet encounter with mostly rebake NPCs

Pilots

Levi Drake
Orsiris Goblin (Bonded:Vicroy) Core Power
Stormbending Vicroy (Bonded: Goblin)

Enemy Forces
Commander Bastion
Aegis
Vet Sniper
Support
Vet Seeder

Reinforcement
RPV Pirate Leech
Shocktrooper (homebrew)

Seeder: Didn't really do much, Vicroy is a bad enemy for a seeder to go up against even if with different mine types. Trying to make saves against the Bonded goblin Vicory pair also didn't work out great. I tried to Last Line Sealant Mine but +2 Accuracy at LL3 is enough to make the save. Players were generally postivite over the change of being able to see the mine. The Drake was doing his best to avoid them and the one time he did step on it, he passed and got away scott free with that massive armor pool of his.

Sniper: Pinned down the Drake fairly well, with difficult terrain favouring the defenders, they also landed a good hit on the Goblin and got a Moving target hit on the drake, structing it. It was able to do this due to the support and restock drone. However, the Drake got close enough to hit it with a Levi and so it died.

Support: The GOAT, when the Goblin First Gate the Sniper. The Support was the one to grapple him so when it activated, it didn't move. It also got a restock drone to reload the sniper. Remote cloud is also fairly useful against the stormbending happy vicory and succeeding on saves to avoid getting knocked around.

tame obsidian
#

I've got a beefy encounter lined up with reinforcements changing based on how the initial rounds open.
To start I've got this main trio, they're templated with Spec Ops from Dustgrave:
Sniper Veteran - Defensive Grapple; Swift Sights; Blinding Laser
Mirage - Illusory Subroutines
Ronin Veteran - Lightning Reflexes; Feign Death (funni haha)

As for support units:
Grunt Priest as an Investiture/Greater Investiture spammer
Archer - Flush Out; Covering Fire
Support Vehicle with Flier - Latch Drone; Remote Reboot
Seeder - Last Line; Speed Deployer; Hopping Mines
Engineer - Auto Tracking; Deployable Fortifications; Mobile Turrets

My map is set out with cover on the ceiling, so the Sniper can Defensive Grapple to different positions to change sightlines;
Support drops Latch Drone on the Ronin and flies so I can drop restock drones ahead of the Sniper's movements.
Archer flushes characters out of cover, Ronin keeps them there for the Sniper.
Priest supports the Ronin to keep them alive if they get caught out + to supplement the poor heatcap
Mirage blinks the team around for positioning.
Seeder defends the backline to prevent the Priest/Sniper/Support getting targeted
Engineer turret spam for moving hard cover, which the Ronin, Seeder and Archer will likely make use of.

I'll likely drop in the Priest and Support to begin with and see about which of the others to throw in to best help the Sniper keep the fear of RA in the players.

rose hamlet
#

Oh, one piece of feedback I forgot to mention regarding Controller Grunts:

  • a player suggested adding a Limited 1 tag or the like to the Heat Negation effect for easier tracking of which grunt's no longer heat-protected.
indigo oasis
#

I think the other grunt types have something similar in fact, I don’t recall at this moment

ashen galleon
#

Half Joke: If it's possible, add a drift mechanic to Vehicle templates

i want to watch a vehicle assault drift around a corner 👁️

indigo oasis
#

That’s for someone else to tackle methinks

#

The Kai rebake is definitely tackling the core NPC tools when it comes to rebaking and nothing much else

ashen galleon
#

yeah i added the halfjoke part as a result. i wasnt expecting it to actually hapepn

#

happen*

indigo oasis
#

Fair lol

brisk flax
#

Also to be honest, "vehicles but they can move normally" sort of defeats the purpose of the template, which is largely about adding more restrictions

neon blaze
#

okay, managed to compile immediate thoughts and notes after wrapping up this first scene - its a bit lengthy to cram all the words in though, so would it be fine If I just threw it here in a word document

simple juniper
#

Drifting? That's what Boost is for: you can change directions on a boost. Narratively speaking, a Boost means a character moving much faster than usual, and changing directions after their initial movement like this can and should be narrated as drifting.

brisk flax
#

do people still use pastebin?

#

does pastebin still exist?

surreal zenith
#

last i checked

#

yeah it's still there

rose hamlet
#

I ran some more rebakes today, I have better notes but the tldr:

  • Support Grunts are great, enjoyable to use them with Bombards and Breachers
  • Breachers and Bombards have great presence due to size 2
  • I struggled to use Controller grunts but think they have promise
  • Demolishers are damn fun with Heavy Tread and Knockback (and I miss the Knockback when facing Fomorian frames 😭 )
  • T2 Bombard Cluster Munitions can be devastating on a Holdout. I fielded 3 max on the field at once; the players were thankfully split up at that time, but when they finally had to cluster together at the end of the holdout, exposed and struggling to keep their reactors in shape, the surviving 2 bombards dealt some devastating damage
#

Caveats on the bombards:

  • I was running house rules that guaranteed Exposed but eliminated reactor meltdown on Overheating
  • I was also running structure damage rules that prevented early destruction
brisk flax
#

Thanks for the notes

#

"Bombards are bastards on holdouts" is just universally true

neon blaze
# brisk flax sure whatever works, or like pastebin

gotchya, here you go then - I think thats mostly everything down I recalled, we played over two days so I couldn't cover every single interaction or detail. I did try to give some good context to how things largely played out as a whole. Nothing exceptional occured, otherwise, but players managed well and we enjoyed ourselves all the same

📎 RecOWS_S3-1_Rebake_Test.rtf
brisk flax
#

The bombard is probaby in the least "you can field multiples of these" artillery position of rebakes

#

it's been suggested that I could like flatten the cluster munition scaling by tier (that is, instead of +2/3/4 damage just do +2 damage per guy past the first at all tiers) but I'm not wholly sold on the necessity of it

neon blaze
#

I think if I had to give any explicit call out though, as if the length of the segment discussing them didn't indicate enough, I'm personally really enjoying the rebake Engineer and I think it is largely successful in encouraging player engagement to a massive degree

#

GMS Pistols were a genuine savior and got a good showing out of it

brisk flax
#

also lmao everyone loves fascam

neon blaze
#

also turned out very intuitive to the players at hand, the Viceroy especially who is relatively new - turns out when they see something spit out a billion turrets the gut reaction is as much "oh god kill the ads" as it is "oh god kill the boss"

rose hamlet
# brisk flax "Bombards are bastards on holdouts" is just universally true

Absolutely, and I wanted to stress test them to be certain. They were okay while the PCs were separated/off the point handling defenses, but definitely packed a heavy punch when the sitrep came to a close. Due to the Exposed, they wound up taking like, 3-4 EDIT: of the 7 total lost structure* in the tail end of the last round

neon blaze
#

FASCAM was truly a treat, I am grateful for my players walking off the Holdout point so I could just slam it directly on top of it

#

immediately making everything worse for everyone involved

brisk flax
#

I'm glad it's working out that way as I basically just opened the throttle on that change like "fuck it, let's see what happens"

rose hamlet
neon blaze
#

its definitely nice to see Aux users be able to shine in a big way

brisk flax
#

turret management also seems increasingly relevant on multi-structure engineers as it provides a more immediate way to handle their output without having to chunk through multiple 20 HP structure bars

#

my personal take on CRB engineers is that they're kind of a "Brute" but in a not super engaging way

#

you have to just bust through an HP wall before turret spam starts outputting undesirable amounts of damage, the exception being if you have chunky AoE stuff in which case you can try to sweep up turrets along with the engineer

#

(plasma thrower, daisy cutter, drop howitzers/siege cannons on them etc)

neon blaze
#

I think that definitely was the case here, yeah - Elite + Veteran gave players a lot to chew though but also a good release valve to keep the turret pressure low enough to not get steamrolled (mostly)

#

it makes for a engaging tug of war

#

but yeah, definitely an immediate favourite in the roster

brisk flax
#

Thanks for giving the structure table a spin even if it didn't really come up much

neon blaze
#

It still had a big impact on how things played out tbh

#

if even I didn't get Jammed I was being forced a lot to consider whether to eat the perma Frag Sig or see I could survive a Stun turn (i could not)

#

but it did mean I got to make good use out of the Support-type Grunts I brought along

#

I agree with Valk, the little bastards are really nice

brisk flax
#

Yeah that's a very nice usecase combo re: the support-type grunts

#

Also to clarify: ronins can't share marks

#

just in general I ascribe to the "no NPC shares bespoke stuff with others of their class" as a general guideline

neon blaze
#

gotchya - it was a question my player brought up so I thought to pass it along

#

the interaction itself never got a chance to occur seeing the first Ronin was long dead by the time the second showed

#

otherwise, makes sense and is consistent with the other NPCs

#

they were fairly interesting - I felt a lot more reluctant to throw them into the field than I normally am with Ronins

brisk flax
#

in terms of resilience and durability they're basically identical to CRB ronins, rebound and all

#

they do less DAMAGE directly in terms of critfishing/multi-attacking, so is that the main factor?

#

just that they aren't as able to be a blender

neon blaze
#

50% of it was my fault (see: FASCAM) but Counter-Ballistic Suite actually encouraged me to hang back more and try and set up Ronin looming over as many characters in Range 5 rather than rushing them at the closest person

#

gave more opportunities for Ronin Marks, after which I would then dive

brisk flax
#

Gotcha, so it's more of an opportunism thing (the vulturine nature you mentioned)

#

okay makes sense

#

Counter-Ballistic Suite does have a bit of "threatening presence" to it

neon blaze
#

it was def. not what I expected to be doing at first but once I read it over I was like "Oh yeah, I could just menace with this"

#

if I bait a Rebound out of it, all the better (i didn't, not any good ones anyway. in the end I settled for rebounding Aux shots and then dying to a drill)

#

players I think were just canny enough to know Ronin are bad news to shoot at with big guns so, yeah, fair play

#

the anti-ranged striker dying to melee is about as poetic as it gets

brisk flax
#

that's in fact a big way you can engage with them, yeah

#

"okay then I will just melee you to death"

neon blaze
# 
Whom met untimely with a Vlad's Combat Drill.
He took 26 damage,
His structure couldn't manage,
And by the end there was naught left to salvage.```
or however it goes
brisk flax
#

lmao

#

(also lmao at more fascam

#

I thought real hard "should I make this hostiles-only" and immediately knew it would be funnier if it wasn't

neon blaze
#

it definitely elevated the encounter

#

the Support-type Grunt that got off 3 Improvised attacks uncontested who managed to dodge like 2 nanobot whips and everything else eventually slipped on a mine and instantly died the second I pushed it onto point so yeah

#

perfect comedy

bold crystal
# brisk flax it's been suggested that I could like flatten the cluster munition scaling by ti...

(this is something I have a strong opinion on; I think cutting down on the scaling damage would be the wrong way to go, since that is the bombard's niche. if it needs cutting down, dropping the base damage to 5/6/7 or even 5/5/5 would intensify the dynamic of it being very scary vs multiple targets and ineffective if players split up, and to a degree would also encourage more friendly fire to try and get the extra damage.)
(this, of course, if it's necessary at all; excuse me I've been thinking about bombard scaling in the back of my mind for like a couple weeks now.)

brisk flax
#

yeah

#

I'm in a similar boat in that it's interesting to rotate in my mind, but I don't feel strongly enough about it to commit to extended time in the oven on it

#

broadly we already know how the CRB bombard works and it's "dangerous but not tier 3 ronin/operator/specter" sort of danger

bold crystal
#

(secondarily I do have to wonder if Cluster Munitions should only affect the Bombard Cannon. this is a little more actionable because I think that it affecting other weapons just leads to Kinda Stupid Things Immediately.)

trail pivot
#

I actually have been exploring flat damage scaling on the bombard on a whim, bit I also gave the bombards a Siege Cannon utility by default, but this was mostly because after having f a lot of bombard tier experience, I reworked the traditional to hit to be +0/1/2 so that cover is more likely to affect the bombard without suddenly making it more accurate

brisk flax
#

I think I just got a bit lazy with it since I removed the repeater cannon but yeah there's no real reason to open it up to nova missiles et al

bold crystal
#

ravager turret especially - this is a corebook interaction and, frankly, I don't think it should do that.

smoky bluff
#

taht would be funny though

brisk flax
#

funny (derogatory)

trail pivot
#

yeah I just made the effect part of the gun itself

young laurel
#

I am the fool, with a brain trying to do something weird.

image.png
#

Behold. A preview. (Brain is slow cooking.)

tall turret
#

Guessing each past gives it a unique buff?

young laurel
#

That and my brain is making me thonk of each Past will change the Carbon Fiber Blade for a weapon unique to each past, or add another one with a unique trait locked to each past.

#

Things like
Guard = Spear
Dancer = Ribbons
Duelist = Another sword
Smith = HIGH YIELD EXPLOSIVE
Legend = Partner (Thinking of changing Legend to Warrior as both that and Duelist are very different from each other)

tranquil granite
#

Also, would someone mind pinning the updated .lcp?

subtle nacelle
#

the latest lcp can always be found in the releases tab on the github repo

tranquil granite
#

Didn't realize it was the same repo, ty.

small hamlet
#

Does Combined Arms 2 turn off the +2 Difficulty from Ronin's Chaff Launchers as it would turn off the +1 Difficulty from being engaged with anyone else?

bold crystal
#

I'd have to doublecheck the wording later, but iirc it's 'instead of' so yes, ca2 would turn it off

brisk flax
#

it's in the same boat as the Metalmark's Mimic Carapace trait which causes ranged attacks against them while they're in soft cover to be made with +2 difficulty instead of +1; if something ignores soft cover, it will ignore the full +2 difficulty

#

same with the Hornet rebake's System Spike causing Impaired to inflict +2 Difficulty instead of +1, etc etc

tranquil granite
#

Threw some tokens for the bespoke grunts together in Retrograde, I'll post them here in case anyone wants to use them.

grunt_artillery_dmr_v2.png grunt_artillery_mortar_v2.png grunt_controller_v1.png grunt_defender_v1.png grunt_striker_ar_v1.png grunt_striker_hcb_v1.png grunt_support_v1.png
brisk flax
#

it's the boys

rose hamlet
# rose hamlet I ran some more rebakes today, I have better notes but the tldr: - Support Grunt...

Okay so here's a more in-depth breakdown:

2-combat session, asked players to treat it like a 3-4 fight mission

Tier 2, Players at LL6

  • Mobility-focused Fomorian Lancaster w/ Blinkspace Tunneler, Infiltrator, Duelist
  • High Support Taraxacum w/ FABI mod, Field Analyst, Orator
  • Technothumb Hacker Chomolungma w/ OSIRIS & Minotaur parts
  • Demolitionist Caliban with Cannibal & Spike Charges

Combat 1: Extraction:

  • Veteran Demolishers (Hullcracker, Heavy Tread)
  • Squads (RATELO, Reconus's Squad Kits)
  • Operators (Deniable Asset)
  • Controller Grunts

Tried this combat again, only to realize that the map was actually pretty terrible. It was 16x16, but the real, bigger issue was that the "lane" to the objective and extraction was basically meaningless to the Taraxacum and the Size 3 Lancaster. So the fight ended quickly again after about 3 rounds or so.

That said, I deployed a wave at the start of Round 1 so I got more data on some NPCs. Demolisher was threatening but Fomorian Lancaster laughed at the knockback lol. Operators got a few decent shots, but wound up having to be the ones to contest the objective after a Wide-Area Code Pulse bought the PCs a free round. Squad setup, got to buff an Operator, but was killed before the Operator could use it. Wound up throwing Operators at the payload to try to stop it; they just got knocked away lol.

Strong control effects kept the Demolishers contained. The Controller Grunts got popped quickly; one dropped the Electro-Chaff on some PCs but PCs wound up knocked out of the area by Demolitionist Caliban shenanigans. Definitely wanna try Controller Grunts again; I think their knockback effect would've been helpful if they could've gotten LoS (and if the Lancaster wasn't Fomorian). No Operators died, so no Deniable Asset. Fight was mostly a wash but oh well.

Combat 2 to come

image.png
brisk flax
#

wow, 16x16 map, wide-area code pulse can practically cover the whole thing

#

bet the chomolungma had fun

rose hamlet
#

Combat 2: Holdout: PCs had to crank up a catapult to launch them into orbit before the enemies destroyed a 40-hit (distinct from HP) shipment. Lasted full 6 rounds, despite my efforts to give avenues to end it faster lol.

Opfor:

  • Bombards w/ Bunker Buster
  • Veteran Breachers w/ Leadwall
  • Mesmerist ( #1254229800952922193 dodgetank Defender/Controller) w/ Hypnotic Attraction (read: Puppet Systems but directly towards the Mesmerist)
  • Support Grunts

Initial deployment had

  • 2x Bombards
  • 2x Breachers
  • 2x Mesmerists
  • 4x Support Grunts

Basically same number in reinforcements. Enemy Deployment Zone was bottom right corner, big zone of Soft Cover.

Breachers broke through the big rock wall you can see on the map to let Mesmerists follow through. Bombards shelled the point, when they weren't turbojammed or Stunned or forced to move by Eject Power Cores or OSIRIS carried by the Chomolungma (which ate like 5 turns of bombard cannon). Taraxacum invalidated the soft cover and Mesmerist Invisible with its CP and scans, well done. Lanny did most of the cranking, Caliban knocked everything around a lot and eventually wrecked shit in the EDZ; very little could stop them sweating

Last round of the combat, 2 PCs were Exposed from overheating. They all needed to sit on the point, meaning that they were close enough for Bombard shots to get 3 PCs at a time for 7 + 3 +3 = 13 damage on a hit. Exposed Chomolungma + Caliban lost 3 combined structure; Caliban Braced to avoid more, but Chomolungma Braced earlier (and I have a 1/scene Brace house rule).

Bunker buster overall didn't force any shreds, and didn't need to destroy terrain since the Breachers already had that handled. Any time I couldn't get 2 PCs at a time in a shot, I simply didn't use Bunker Buster so I didn't have to reload. Didn't use Earthshaker rounds since Lancaster and Taraxacum didn't care about prone and I didn't wanna give more cover to them.

image.png
#

I liked Leadwall's implementation a lot; one player felt it might be a little too much power but I felt it did fine.

oh, Caliban used Autochoke CP. Only CP not used was Lanny's (Taraxacum used its efficient one in both scenes).

High player concern over bombards led to heavy CC from Chomolungma and targeting from the Caliban.

Breacher + Bombard being size 2 was praised for the "presence" they carried as a result

#

Support Grunts pulled their weight well, I think I used every option they had at least once. The Lock-On one was the one I wanted to use the least (due to fear of getting hacked to death and trying to stay alive for buffing Bombards with Power Transmission) but everything ultimately felt good to use

rose hamlet
# brisk flax wow, 16x16 map, wide-area code pulse can practically cover the whole thing

Yeah they were able to hang back and dump WACP easy. Couldn't hit a Hidden Operator and the Biological Squad but overall EPJ's 2 energy popped a lot of grunts yesterday (fool that I was with my deployment positioning). But when you can attack everything in Burst 15 you're naturally gonna cover a LOT of any map smaller than 30x30

Oh, Controller Grunts survived WACP's heat thanks to their trait, so that was good

#

I wanna try the Extraction comp one more time at some point, but on an Escort instead and on a map that isn't ass

#

Oh, Bombard Size 2 made the Caliban player feel like they were harder to bully with knockback, which I agree with.

Overcharge on Veterans overall was good and pleasant but also super risky for Breachers facing a Chomolungma. I used my personal Overcharge Rules that lets you reroll an attack/check/save once, so the Demolisher Veteran was happy to use that on their hammer. If they were Normal Overcharge they'd probably have used Hullcracker + Demo Hammer Barrage instead

#

Players were 😮 at the difficult terrain field from Heavy Tread, so it definitely got their attention, but ultimately they didn't care much due to Caliban Knockback and everyone else flying or being huge

#

I think that's all my notes on the Rebakes in this context, if you have questions please lemme know

brisk flax
#

"you get one consolation attack IF you miss all of your other attacks, with a highly inaccurate modest damage gun, on a mech you want 2+ hits from in a turn to make the jackpot happen" is something that I can easily see not coming into play in a lot of instances

rose hamlet
brisk flax
#

yeah

rose hamlet
#

I hit a surprising amount of single-shots

brisk flax
#

that's sort of what I mean...to get it you have to beef all your attacks

#

so if you hit one of two, it doesn't proc

#

it's BASICALLY a form of pseudo-reliable in a roundabout way

rose hamlet
#

yeah it raises the "expectation value" average, but not the ceiling

brisk flax
#

your Breacher has a better statistical chance of doing SOMETHING

rose hamlet
#

so IMO it's fine, esp on a Veteran

brisk flax
#

but it doesn't help with Break Armor which is the big thing you're looking to fish for

heavy pebble
#

It DOES help a bit if the breacher overcharges to shoot twice

brisk flax
#

Yep, it can at that

#

and baked in limitless means you get to do that, but also: overcharging gives you 4 shots anyway

rose hamlet
#

that's fair; I wasn't using Overcharge in a way that would allow it to do so, so that's something to consider

#

I figured I'd mention the player take anyway, even if I disagreed with them

heavy pebble
#

It's a cool name for a cool ability, but it doesn't change anyone's tactics at all.

rose hamlet
#

nothing wrong with Veteran letting you be "More Breacher"

heavy pebble
#

Could just let it get a free fifth shot when it overcharges

rose hamlet
#

I personally prefer avoiding coupling the Veteran optionals to Limitless, to be frank

heavy pebble
#

Yeah, sure

brisk flax
#

Yeah I'd prefer that myself

bold crystal
#

veteran leadwall is kind of funny because you can skirmish > beef both attacks > hit leadwall > overcharge skirmish > beef both attacks again > hit leadwall > somehow manage to break armor

brisk flax
#

Veteran optionals are a mix of stuff, some are "this gives you different capabilities," some are just "this is a buff"

vale crescent
rose hamlet
#

That’s the power of overcharge I suppose

vale crescent
#

I mean yeah over charge dual shotguns is the powerful part lol

#

But still, going from needing 2/2 to hit to 2/6 means it can kinda brute force an evasion build much better

bold crystal
#

what if you tried: just shoot more.

vale crescent
#

Why didn't I think of that

#

Warning, critical reactor meltdown imminent

rose hamlet
#

consider: how often is an Evasion build going to have significant Armor anyway

heavy pebble
#

shredded also shuts off atlas's Jaeger Dodge?

brisk flax
#

the important factor here is that the rebake breacher can no longer stack accuracy in the same way as you could do with a CRB version as sources of cumulatively stacking persistent accuracy no longer exist AND its max effective accuracy is hard-capped

#

out of the CRB you have tier-scaling Follower Count, Investiture, etc, and so the inaccurate breacher could actually scale pretty hard in certain circumstances to the point that what you have is actually a very chunky multiattacking striker

#

this version has the inverse shatterhead effect, so I'm more okay with it getting additional attack rolls to fish for things because it's less likely to pop off in an undesired fashion

heavy pebble
#

Report:

  • Goliath was effective even without its Siege Armor (although maybe it's just because my players rely a lot on melee). A Scout made it invisible before they focused it down and it soaked up a lot of hits blocking a payload. I never used Crush Targeting, but it would have been very useful against the melee players if they hadn't gone straight for it anyway.
  • Goliath's optional Mag Gauntlet was surprisingly useful although I never grappled anyone with it. Pulling people into shotgun range, grouping players up for the bombard, disrupting formations, etc. Wish it went 5 spaces, so at max range pulls into shotgun range.
  • Towering Stride allowed Goliath to avoid being crowded out by an Oasis wall, very handy.
  • Bombard got some good blasts in before the players chose to spread out. The fight was in zero-g, so I swapped out Earthshaker for High-Impact shells. No other optionals (these were turrets). I used the knockback to shove the Enkidu at its own allies. Once they spread out, I found myself using a particularly brave Scout to increase the target count (they were partners so it was weirdly thematic). Only once in the whole fight did either bombard attack less than two targets and have to use regular shells.
heavy pebble
#

Oh, and I used Barricade's Titan-Snare drone again. Stopped a Pankrati charge cold. The drone was so tanky and evasive that the players failed to hit it with a bunch of attacks, then gave up and Stabilized to escape. I think it might be a little too hard to kill.

brisk flax
heavy pebble
#

Well in that case I agree with lowering the HP if it was even higher

brisk flax
#

CRB scales 5/10/15, the rebake scales 5/8/10 as do most other drones per standardization

heavy pebble
#

This was at t3