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

1 messages · Page 19 of 1

brisk flax
#

Its stuff is "what would a cool spec ops guy have" over "what is this unit's purpose and role"

#

Anyway yeah, I very much wanted the rebakes to cleave close to their CRB counterparts, my personal "I want to hack this" approach is to start small and only escalate to bigger changes if I think it really needs it

#

That's just a "me" thing, but it also lowers the barrier to use

#

If you know how a CRB Assault works, you know how a rebake Assault works, you just have to play them a little bit different

simple prawn
#

Kai, ur design write ups are extremely good. It makes the thought process behind the changes a lot easier to understand and digest

twin reef
#

I'm thinking about how the Berserker really is the perfect striker NPC.

dapper sierra
#

the design writeups are a really good add yea

zenith sapphire
#

Very nice design.
Although I don't particularly agree with the acc stacking on phract leading to crit stacking as a conclusion. Considering the more accurate members like reactive archer or ronins, who adds static value outside a single acuracy, which yields better gain compared to diminishing return in multiple accuracies.
Specifically, +1/2/3cc_accuracy have an average of 3.5/4.47/4.95, compared to +2/4/6, or even revised assassin's +1/2/3 +1cc_accuracy which is 4.5/5.5/6.5 (or scourers for the matter, as relatively accurate but not ronin level accurate)
Still, it's likely better compared to the likes of zerks and assault
As to if it lends itself to oft crits...? doubtful, and one can argue it's even less critical leaned because the usual crit improvement of well, extra cc_accuracy would have diminishing return on the phract because of the abundance of cc_accuracy integrated compared to the fixed positive to-hits.
It's also the only disagreement I find, the rest was also an incredibly enlightening read that help me notice some new tricks and also would likely make NPCs run smoother and well oiled.

#

It's also interesting to note that +2/4/6s catch up to +1/2/3+cc_accuracy in their natural habitat as things go. although +2/4/6 at higher tier would be swayed more significantly by external **accuracy **or difficulties...
Although I haven't ran much high ll game to say for certain

#

Considering T3 CRB ronin and operator is a flat compeition on the speed of OTKing the other side...so yeah probably not a fan of running high T games, also archers are a damn nightmare in plain gunman clothing

#

Re: I suppose the resistance to benefit of cc_accuracy at higher tier etc with the phract have the dubious benefit of being more resistant to cc_difficulty

indigo oasis
#

And more static refers to the bonuses it receives in addition to the penalties

zenith sapphire
#

Which...doesn't lend itself to crit improvements

indigo oasis
#

It makes the Cataphract way better at operating solo and kinda not good in teams

zenith sapphire
#

that's true

#

It would be more robust in hostile conditions

#

and running around in impaired

vestal jackal
#

Tbh that would be an interesting idea to mess around with cataphract systems that impose difficulty on its attacks

#

In exchange for bigger bonuses on hit

zenith sapphire
#

or even shooting someone else while dragging some poor sod

indigo oasis
#

But I think the fact that the Knockback is disconnected from any Crit reliance does compensate a decent bit

bold crystal
#

I appreciate its accuracy stacking just because it interacts in a funny way with a certain suldan system

zenith sapphire
#

crit tying this would probably proc less often, but that's okay

#

not like, everyone need crit effect to proc like the paper shredder that is ronin

indigo oasis
zenith sapphire
#

still it's a bit weird as design intentions go

#

then the obvious choice

#

would be an optional that buff the cataphract when no allie is within range 5 (?)

#

make it 10 even

#

but that's sidetracking

indigo oasis
#

Since the impair crit effect triggers on the ranged attacks I’m guessing that you use that when you simply can’t be in threat to use melee profile

#

However rarely that might happen with like 8 speed

zenith sapphire
#

I mean the damage is always there

#

you can just shoot when you don't rly need the damage or knbk and just want the backliner to be as miserable as possible with engaged and impaired

#

with the acc stac it can take engaged like a boss

indigo oasis
zenith sapphire
#

although revised capacitor discharge is...very funny

indigo oasis
#

Anyway yeah the Cataphract isn’t designed to be a critter in the first place, so having a niche rider for crits is like. Fine

zenith sapphire
#

yeah

zenith sapphire
#

it would probably even make the GM engage more with using weapons, as opposed to just making the fract like the mobile grapple dispensor

#

-# although it will forever seem out of the blue to me

indigo oasis
#

I do almost- ALMOST- wish there was an NPC equivalent to Markerlight for that kinda thing

#

… oh right SpecOps :P

zenith sapphire
#

ouch specops

indigo oasis
#

I don’t care what anyone says I will forever stan SpecOps the same way folks stan Spacer

#

And no it’s not just coordinated carnage >:(

zenith sapphire
#

coord carnage to diversify the specop in action compared to elite+multiple sub actors, camo for survivability into lengthened presence, and the crit bonus and guarantee crit for high output alphas

#

yeah, ouchops is true to it's name

indigo oasis
#

And the optionals are fun af

zenith sapphire
#

I find specops to be less favored because there is a oft occurance of PC hemorraging en masse when I use them

#

same but to a less extent: mirages

#

so I'm cutting down the dose of those two for now. On a...OPFOR diet, so to speak

indigo oasis
zenith sapphire
#

PC

#

I ran a serrated machete specter once

#

even though I removed the active camo from everyone

#

they still were very thoroughly divided and cutted down

indigo oasis
#

Yeah it’s definitely not a low power template, but that’s. Kinda what I like about it?

zenith sapphire
#

ser machete works too well because it's not only threat 1, it's also a melee thrown 5, which the specter can pick up after prowl

#

yeah I'm...not exactly the kind of guy to show self restraint once the actual sitrep begins

#

so I restrain more in the NPC deployed than their action

indigo oasis
#

It has a very distinct identity without any optionals being factored in so it feels much more purposeful to use rather than “I guess I like this optional so I’ll give the template to grant an optional”

zenith sapphire
#

yah, it's very very nice.

indigo oasis
#

SpecOps is extremely functional + has a clear w/o optionals

#

Compare that to Pirate whose only base feature is deadly, and you need to put some more work in to get it to work in that case

zenith sapphire
#

pirate is...kinda bland

#

it's either okay not really proccing or

#

oh shit I need to stop using the ronin so much

#

I haven't found a functional proc but not quite often proc region

indigo oasis
#

Pirate is one of the worst offenders when it comes to “template base trait loadout”, but imo it’s not the only one

zenith sapphire
#

probably archer or scourer

#

you forgot horror

indigo oasis
#

I was about to mention lol

#

Exotic falls into this category too- Hardened Target feels like a big power boost but not enough of one to forsake optionals

zenith sapphire
#

I swear by spacer though

#

simply because grav gun is goat

#

not much of a power boost, but more control and annoyance

#

one of my more hellish spawn is sealant trap leech

indigo oasis
#

See there are two categories of “good template” imo:

  1. this makes big changes to the NPC while throwing in some fun optionals you can use
  2. This makes almost no changes to the NPC without optionals
zenith sapphire
#

tru

indigo oasis
#

And while I prefer the former I can’t deny the latter is legitimately good design

zenith sapphire
#

aye

#

there is a...thing

#

I want to try out

#

sealant trap phract

indigo oasis
#

Templates imo is one of the few examples where you want to hang out at those extremes rather than in the middle

zenith sapphire
#

proc the trap with a grappled char by the phract, drag them away

#

even if they manage to clear the grapple, they are still locked by the sealant 15 spaces away

#

which is...not the best interaction or well intentioned design

#

so I locked it in the neat little corner of abs prick moves

brisk flax
#

"Consistently has positive values even in the face of penalties" is, imo, something that lends itself to being good for having better critical hit chances

zenith sapphire
#

I would argue that trying to crit with penalties is already quite the uphill battle...

#

but okay

brisk flax
#

yeah but that's my point, the Cataphract is more "penalty immune"

#

as it scales, it becomes more robust against things like Impaired

#

or even cover

#

it's fair that it doesn't benefit from things like allied accuracy granting via lock on but given the cataphract wants to grab someone and yank them across the map, it's fine for it to be more independent in this regard

zenith sapphire
#

I'm not arguing about the robustness.
But I would like to say that without to-hit static mod, with 1 acc, the crit chance is approx 22.5%, which is hard to actually plan for, and the +1 acc pushes crit chance of 27.5. where as for +2, an acc pushes the crit rate from 15 to 32.5, with more of a difference made with tactics such as planning and supports such as lock on. and that you can actually improve the crit occurance with deliberation and planning.
feels imo kinda like tying on crit effect on reliable
but I suppose if the purpose of the crit is to reward constant ram cannon usage as a gun with stable but 20-30 ish constant crit rate, then I suppose it fits the criteria

#

hm, perhaps then it could be me interpreting the design note wrong

brisk flax
#

Yeah, and it's not central to the gameplan of the cataphract

#

What I mean is, the Cataphract isn't "the critical hit guy" so much as I decided to look at its weird to-hit scaling as an excuse to tie a crit effect to a couple of things

#

rather than just going "I'm gonna give this guy normal to-hit scaling"

#

I don't know why tom gave it the +1/2/3 Accuracy scaling in the first place, and I could have just standardized it, but my thought was "what if I kept this, why would I do it?" and a consistently stable crit guy who doesn't care as much about getting skunked by random floating difficulty works well for that imo

#

I would, frankly, rather have "guy whose crit chance is stable around 30%" than "guy whose crit chance gets higher and higher over time"

#

the latter is a thing you encounter with CRB Ronins and is one of the reasons why they become such a menace at higher tiers of play

zenith sapphire
#

-# I would read crit 'fishing' as trying to get conditional acc on static modifier like archer et co to improve their crit chance significantly with planning/lock on to capitalize on their conditional but not constant crit rate.

#

but I suppose that's more of a personal interpretation mistake

#

eh, that's one for the notes

brisk flax
#

I see "critfishing" as being a product of both crit rate and also repeatedly "fishing" for the crit by attacking

#

that is, it's not just jacking your crit rate to the ceiling, it's going "I attack this guy 10000000000 times"

#

this is why centimane works best with lots of aux nexus weapons rather than one big guy

#

the ABCs of Cataphract play are Always Be Ram Cannoning

#

The Cataphract even gets an optional that's just "make an extra attack on the house"

plain raft
#

If anything, the strange advancements of accuracy over normal to hit could lend itself to the Cata in a narrative sense.

Where as the pilots of the Cata get better (by tier of play) their ability to shrug off anything that would get in their way. Hacking, cover, shields. Their lance will pierce through and find their target. Even if it might not always hit the mark

brisk flax
#

Rebake Berserkers and Cataphracts are NPCs who, if you make them Veterans, can potentially reach the "three attacks in one turn" dynamic, at least for brief periods of time

plain raft
#

which with Cata's upper accuracy bonus of +3, you're gona have to do alot to knock off their aim

zenith sapphire
#

Ultra's mini rail. Is the ignore ordnance attack +1/2/3 +1 acc from weapon and then +1 diff from mode resulting in a final +1/2/3? or is the ignore ordnance attack flatly +1/2/3+1 diff?

image.png
bold crystal
#

I would assume final of 1/2/3

brisk flax
#

Accuracy and difficulty canceling one another out

cobalt hull
#

if the demo uses earthshatter to attack terrain (not a character) can it still deal damage to another piece of terrain or the same terrain?

bold crystal
#

there's nothing saying it can't, so...

cobalt hull
#

hell yeah

cunning marlin
#

Hell yeah

stray oar
#

Late to the discussion, but wanted to throw this out there: as a GM I really appreciated the effort to provide more diverse optionals to find stuff like Shredded.

It really helps when using a “faction roster” type approach to give flavor to different enemy factions, to keep them a bit more able to threaten tanky players if needed, without all needing to run the exact same NPC kits all the time that counter them in exactly the same ways.

Maybe Faction X doesn’t really use Scouts with advanced sensors and cloaking fields.

brisk flax
#

yeah, some people have remarked they feel the rebake "devalues" armor and resistance, but the thing is the CRB stuff that applies shredded et al is actually kind of narrow

twin reef
#

And the fact that a Drake can shrug off almost half of a CRB Operator's Skirmish is no consolation to the Atlas who Jager Dodged one hit and then got slapped for full by the other two.

zenith sapphire
#

rather, I would say thre presence of tools to do shred instead of flat damage actually contributes to interactions. Instead of "oops I have armor and resistance and will now do the same loop again and again with no variation because ***"

brisk flax
#

Also, notably, most of the new stuff that shreds is optionals rather than baseline stuff

#

If you overuse shredded in your comp, it is quite definitionally a self-inflicted problem

steel wigeon
#

Question regarding rebake grunts.

Generally speaking, would you be fine using them as the bulk of an opfor (ie, most normal npcs are instead replaced with 4 grunts)

with the metaphorical enemy battle 'lines' being anchored by non grunts

and also following the "striker/arty <= 50% general guideline?"

#

I want to try and make a mission where the pcs have the ability to mow through metaphorical hordes of enemies (outnumbered but not outgunned), but I'm aware of how swingy some crb grunts can be, and kinda unsure if rebake grunts are better in that regard

fathom root
#

avg barony tactic

dapper plover
#

the grt rush...

vale crescent
#

Just to remind you, about the final words of the dev commentary for grunt:

they aren't something I would overuse any more than I would overuse any other non-Grunt NPC.

#

So going only grunts can work but... Caution

steel wigeon
#

not grunts only, but rather

the overwhelming majority of foes are grunts that can be mowed through

vale crescent
#

Point still stands with the overuse n such

indigo oasis
#

I do think with most of the Grunts the concern of them being overwhelming in terms of power and damage output is low. The exception being Controller Grunts, the only grunt able to lay down effect that persist after its death with no defined end condition. So I'd use them more sparingly

#

But you just need to find a good few NPCs that can pair well with a grunt swarm- I think Hive, Priest, Aegis, and Barricade fit that description well.

fathom root
#

necromancer commander would have a good time here

rose hamlet
#

Legitimately I think Many Grunts is a niche better handled by Squads or #1062222891342647366 Squadrons maybe

#

Reminded of pathfinder 2e’s Troops

steel wigeon
#

I tried squads in a previous game but they were deceptively tanky

brisk flax
#

The big problem with Oops All Grunts that the rebake doesn't do anything about is that if you're facing, say, 15 grunts and your players kill 5 of them, there are still 10 opfor unit activations they have to deal with and that probably will all end up crammed into the end of the round

#

It's cool that you can't accidentally do a bunch of 6/8/10 damage assault grunts under that paradigm, but 10 striker type grunts shooting you one after another with all PC turns exhausted still isn't really a thing you're probably going to enjoy

#

It's an issue I'm not sure I COULD do anything about short of a more extensive rework of how the grunt concept fundamentally operates in lancer, a thing other people have done in various capacities

rose hamlet
#

To at least spread it out instead of tailing

brisk flax
#

Even then (it's an interesting idea, and actually one I've considered for a revised RPV template) you still probably don't want like 25 grunts on the map

rose hamlet
#

100% agreed, I think lancer needs a different approach for that

brisk flax
#

Like "grunts act in batches" isn't really doing much about the fundamental action econ disparity

#

Notably, even 4E D&D didn't have you using like dozens of minions at once

#

You would see like 4-6 at a time maybe, if the fight was using them, maybe even less

#

My take on grunts remains the same even in the rebake: grunts are a good tool to add seasoning to a fight, an All Grunts fight is like a meal made entirely out of nutmeg

young turtle
#

That's something I had to struggle with hard in my own TTRPG when it came to like, grunt coded characters, and I ended up defaulting to "autohit enemies which always act last and have little health and don't track conditions"

#

the spot a "grunt" takes in a game is really difficult to figure out

ancient forge
#

The best way I’ve seen a “grunt” type unit add lots of bodies without screwing up action economy is ICON’s mob system, where one mob is a single turn and several pawns, with the mob as a whole having one action pool and specialized actions that say things like “move x members, then y happens”

But that also doesn’t seem like it handles multiple encounter points of mobs in one encounter very well

tribal mason
#

That would be squads in Lancer

twin reef
#

Yeah, the closest that gets is the Squad, which is very much a Striker and also anomalous in a number of other ways.

ancient forge
#

No squads are still a single pawn on the board

twin reef
#

So you're looking at either Suldan Conscripts or Enhanced Combat Legionnaires.

ancient forge
#

I didn’t explain well, the members of a mob all have independent positions and track hits separately

#

And often there’s like 2 members/player as the listed count of members a single mob should have

#

Conscript does indeed seem a lot closer

#

Point being a single mob does a good job of feeling like a lotta dudes. All mobs would be too much. Adjusting mobs so that all mobs isn’t too much would make a single mob less imposing, though

#

Just seems like trying to hit both ends working well would be a challenging balance to strike, design wise

rose hamlet
ancient forge
#

Or it’ll use them for weird quasi-aoe effects, like “everything next to a member that moved takes chip damage”

#

In a way it’s kinda like a drone-based npc that’s just all drones, no main npc

rose hamlet
#

That’s a good analogy imo yeah

#

Then yeah I guess the question is “how much budget a designer would want 1 mob to eat up” and then balance around that

brisk flax
#

Also, does Icon have multiple kinds of mobs? Is it a single unit or a build your own? Etc

#

because part of the thing with grunts is that they are, in theory, slantable towards different roles

ancient forge
#

It’s a few different kinds and every member is usually homogenous for a given type of mob

brisk flax
#

in the CRB via picking a different class, in the rebake via "pick your role"

ancient forge
#

There’s a unique mob for the undead faction, one for the beast faction, one for the demon faction, 2 or 3 generic ones (as of the latest playtest material)

twin reef
#

I had a weird thought and I have no idea how to budget it: Inverse Ninja rule. You deploy like four grunts of different roles, but when three of them are destroyed, the last one turns into a full NPC.

restive fable
#

I think I'd budget that as 2 structure, 4 starting activations

plain raft
twin reef
#

Nah, like how Jackie Chan fights a whole bunch of ninja and they all go down like chumps, but the last one takes as long to beat as all the others combined because he saw his friends get their asses kicked and gets serious.

restive fable
#

Do we do this with regular grunts tho

If they're using rebake grunts, have to figure out a statline for the upgraded fella/promote to a full NPC of some equivalent kind (melee striker to ronin I guess?)

young turtle
#

like these guys

image.png
#

or these

#

Or these guys, which you cannot actually damage

image.png
#

the preview we have rn has these as "basic" foes

#

So they're less "build you own grunt" and more "they do a specific thing"

#

But they have niches which are supposed to fit in their faction/dynamic they have

brisk flax
#

Yeah that's cool, and it works really well with Icon's emphasis on factions as a sort of "tentpole" for mechanical identity

young turtle
#

like Imperials having a rare acess to long range ones

brisk flax
#

For Lancer, which lacks those, I think you'd need to make an equivalent unit either have a broad swathe of optionals for customization (something I'm a bit dubious of in general for Lancer specifically, as I believe specialized units are better than generalists) or make role-oriented versions

young turtle
#

yeah

#

I think the way it works in your rebake def works

#

If you asked me another angle you could take would be like

#

Template based ones

#

you have a basic grunt

#

but then you put a template on it and it changes how it works

#

Like a Mercenary Grunt would work different from a regular grunt for example

#

Same for a pirate

indigo oasis
#

Maybe give all non-structure templates a unique grunt optional or something

#

Like how Veteran optionals exist

brisk flax
#

Grunt-specific one offs that go "here's a Pirate Grunt, they get this one extra thing"

vestal jackal
restive fable
sour mist
#

look, I think the way you do a fun all-grunt fight is in waves with varied makeup

smoky bluff
#

How i do all-grunt fights is i made a custom npc that force moves mass amount of npcs to the frontlines, so they act like an actual wave of mass that has weak points to focus on

#

Although i do have to warn them in advance its going to be a horde sort of deal so they can prepare template weapons

indigo oasis
#

I feel like using something like Suldan Conscript, EC Legionnaire, Frontline Platoon, or if you stretch the flavor even Legionnaire Puppeteer, is significantly easier than “oops all grunts.”

#

Speaking of Suldan, will those 2 Suldan Rebake NPC docs ever be pinned anywhere? As is, even if they may not progress further than just being the two PDFs, they are hard to recover for those who do wish to use them regardless

#

(Also as a side note on Suldan and rebakes, I was reading Iridia’s NPCs more thoroughly and… I’m not trying to be rude, but the Angel reads to me like a more tasteful execution of what the Valkyrie is trying to be) (this is just rude actually)

young turtle
#

"not trying to be rude but" is exactly how you can end up sounding rude when you don't mean to be

indigo oasis
#

I’ll just redact that then :/

random urchin
cobalt hull
#

my avenger got bodied so hard that i have nothing to report 😭 i forgot vanguard armor was range 3, not range 5 (my fault), and they managed to focus the avenger so hard that he got to use a single attack after revenge was active
also, this is a fringe case and its more funny than a problem, it was a spec ops. judgement shotgun with active camo is 10+2+1d6. i didn't do that, but if you really hate a player you can use that to blast them xD

#

the amount of movement you can put out on the field is insane /pos. i can't think of any other NPC that can just move that many people around

indigo oasis
#

Wait… where is the d6 coming from?

#

And shouldn’t Vanguard armor being range 3 be a nerf, so it should’ve been stronger than it was?

tropic grotto
#

If the razor swarm and solipsis swarm overlap, and a player starts their turn in that area, they trigger the burn from both, yes? or does the solipsis "This counts as taking burn from a razor swarm." mitigate that in some way? I could see the argument for that if the solipsis swarm itself counted as a razor swarm, rather that counting as damage from the razor swarm, but does one exclude the other somehow?

bold crystal
#

I don't think they're mutually exclusive - 'counts as burn from a razor swarm' exists to trigger driving swarm and electro-nanite payloads, basically?

#

rather than being specifically about the 1/roundyness of it

brisk flax
#

They aren't exclusive, no

indigo oasis
#

That’s kinda spooky

brisk flax
#

Electro-Nanite Cloud and Razor Swarms also aren't mutually exclusive in the CRB either, nor are multiple razor swarms in general

indigo oasis
#

Fair and valid, and it’s probably not a bad thing. Just spooky

minor tundra
#

Players deserve to eat nanites. It’s enrichment

tropic grotto
#

Makes sense, knew that was the primary reason but wanted to make sure i wasn't missing something

Quite spooky, and quite fun

My Solstice Rain finale has by coincidence taken Kiros' "Burn it all down" line very literally between rebaked-operator crits, a pyro, and the electro nanite and solipsis elite hive

On one hand the party is slightly advanced at LL2

On the other, a player has chosen the Atlas and will probably become a live crawfish boil KirionaHeckYeah

steel wigeon
#

Also, what are the thoughts on this, for the rebaked grunt majority opfor:

"Outnumbered, but never outgunned."


When a Player controlled Mech takes damage from a Grunt for the first time in a Round, they may choose to gain immunity to that attack and any effects (no reaction required). A player regains one charge of this ability for every 4 Grunts they destroy.```


It won't stop the problem of there being an overwhelming number of grunt activations, but is meant to help encourage pushing forward.
bold crystal
#

weirdly specific question: what happens with operator telefrag when it tries to telefrag into an interdiction field, is allowed to teleport in, and then isn't allowed to teleport out? is that a thing that can happen

quartz quarry
#

Well you’d have to allow it to teleport in via telefrag to begin with

bold crystal
#

I guess this is really just 'can you selectively allow and deny teleports from the same character with interdiction field' more than about the rebake.

brisk flax
#

I assume the answer is "you can choose to let someone teleport in but not out"

#

nothing indicates that permission once granted can't be rescinded again in the same turn

indigo oasis
#

Ya know I never asked- what was the reasoning behind making Expose Weakness’ Scouts mark its own thing outside the Lock On applied?

bold crystal
#

because as written core scouts can just shoot you.

indigo oasis
#

Ohhh okay that makes sense

bold crystal
#

I don't know if that's specifically an answer to your question to be fair, but

indigo oasis
#

The desire is to force it to require an ally

#

I didn’t clock that right away but that makes perfect sense

brisk flax
#

also just in general, making it a consumable mark that's limited to one at a time means the scout can't tag multiple people with the marker rifle and stick them all with floating zenyatta orbs that last until they get hit again

#

and it also allowed it more easily to be turned into a thing with multiple effects rather than just the additional damage

#

In a broad sense, "NPCs should be more reliant on teamwork" is a driving element behind a lot of rebake stuff that manifests in various ways

#

in addition to not really caring for "+8 bonus damage at tier 3," I also don't really care for things like "technically the scout can just keep marker rifling you and dealing damage past the first shot to set things in motion"

brisk flax
wanton maple
#

so, here's an odd question. Can a Hive's Razor Swarm move into a Hardlight shield

bold crystal
#

...huh. I think the answer is no, because it's not a character - 'no attacks or effects can pass through'

brisk flax
#

it can't take damage etc, but it isn't explicitly not a character

indigo oasis
#

I do wonder if unique ideas for other Ultra Sitreps will come up- I understand the sitrep designs are mainly just coming from a place of “if Kai feels so inspired” so there’s no guarantee, but also I think Salt the Earth is a very rebake exclusive and very unique in Lancer OpFor that I personally would have a hard time thinking of something comparatively unique. Sans a Pure Support Traits Ultra at least.

#

Pinned Down also looks like a very fun OpFor, I might use that if I ever get the chance

brisk flax
#

I do plan to do some others involving Ultras, yeah

indigo oasis
#

I will say, off the top of my head, none of the Rebake Ultra tools scream "defender" to me apart from "make the Ultra more durable" but that's prolly all you can do. Anything more and that would be too class specific. THat still makes me curious how a "as pure defender as possible" Ultra and its supporting cast would look- that and the Support Ultra feel far more defined by their supporting units than their own capabilities

fathom root
#

i imagine a reaction that makes the attack target the ultra instead

indigo oasis
#

That’s just Fearless Defender from Bastion

zenith sapphire
#

or goli

#

although I'm going to miss siege armor as an incentive to bait player into range 3 for grapples...

#

I also personally feel hive and pyro is a very decnt mix

#

hive allows you to shove the pyro around a bit with drone barrage, as well as acting as a firestarter for pyro

brisk flax
#

yeah funny thing

# 
Recommended Sitreps: Control, Gauntlet, Recon
Enemy Forces:
For 3 PCs:    
2x Assassin OR 2x Scourer
1x Hive
1x Ultra Pyro (Napalm Bomb, Lingering Flames, Grind Maniple, H0R_OS v?? Puppet Crasher, Siege Shield)
For 4 PCs:     
+1x Mirage OR +1x Support (Desant Hardpoints)
For 5 PCs:    
+1x Hive
Pyro: Add Veteran template and White Hot```
zenith sapphire
#

-# commander hive press the attack -> drone barrage to break pursuit or combo or feed into engaged /whispers

indigo oasis
#

5 sensors tech actions. Fun.

brisk flax
#

8

rose hamlet
#

Love defenders fielding anti-action tech attacks

indigo oasis
#

A Rebake Demolisher with Rebake Devastator would go nasty actually

tropic grotto
#

So not sure if this is an issue to report here or on the github for the module @spice aspen set up.

It looks like the Legendary feature does not correctly roll the check twice for Kai's version of the Ultra, even though the base one does.

I've just stolen the base Ultra's version of it for the Foundry statblock as a workaround but figured I'd flag it to get it eventually fixed.

spice aspen
#

i'd be the one to report that to, yeah. the thing that's happening here might not be obvious but basically uh

#

it's correctly rolling on the vanilla structure/stress table for ultras, but apparently the lancer system is hardcoded to specifically look for the base Legendary feature being present on the actor. in other words, it's baked into lancer's code and it's not something I can easily fix unfortunately. there's one way I can think of -- overriding the base step -- but it's destructive and will make it conflict with other modules

#

not really sure what to do about that bug...

#

it might be out of my hands but I'll try and see if there's a fix I can do. I wouldn't count on it though, I may just have to flag it as a known issue wearysmoke

#

or perhaps just add a setting that lets you do the destructive override but comes with a warning about how it might break stuff

tropic grotto
#

Thought that was what was going on, wasn't sure where that flagging happened. In the meantime on my end just replacing Legendary on the [K] version with the original works well enough at least!

#

Honestly Kiros exploding prematurely probably just helped us end at a sane hour ojo

restive fable
#

Does the Veteran's Legendary trait reroll properly actually

spice aspen
#

in the base lancer system, yeah, it does

restive fable
#

aight I'll use the og trait as a workaround then

spice aspen
#

@tropic grotto @restive fable sorry for the ping, just thought you might appreciate a heads-up, uh -- I have just pushed a new version that, hopefully, should have a "fix". there's no clean way to modify the existing system so what I've done instead is set up a workaround where, before a structure/stress roll is made, the module will silently swap out the rebaked Legendary trait with the core book version, which should save you from having to replace it manually. it also changes the name and description to match, to avoid messing with things like the scan macro

#

it's not an ideal solution but it's the only one I could figure out that wasn't super destructive. you should be able to update it right off the module browser, I've already uploaded it there

#

hopefully that uh... solves the symptom, if not the cause. ping me in #lancer-vtt if you have any issues though; I've done my best to test it locally but I mighta missed something

restive fable
#

Thank you very much!

tropic grotto
#

Neat! Thank you!

spice aspen
#

bcnod. hopefully it works fine

zenith sapphire
#

Is there more notes on why siege armor specifically is dropped on the goli? or is it merely to make room for towering stride?
Because siege armor forcing no-shred comps to move into the range3/threat3 seems kind of like a simple and effective synergy that goli appreciates as a attention gathering bulk...or is siege armor + goli bulk too much effective HP, even for the attention crush targeting would bring to it?
-# that and I want to read more of the nice designer notes, helps me find some new plays on preexisting module sitreps

vale crescent
#

#1334655875679260692 message

#

read from here

indigo oasis
spice aspen
# indigo oasis Questions: 1. Does the issue where Rebake Legendary doesn't trigger like CRB leg...
  1. yeah, it's an issue with the core system code -- the system checks for the hardcoded IDs of specifically the CRB legendary feature, so any NPC without it will not have it work
  2. I'm not entirely sure I follow what you're asking...? rebake ultras do use the CRB structure tables, as do all NPCs in the rebake that have multiple structure or stress (my bad, just ultras). so if you want to use the rebaked ultras but the regular structure rules, then you can just run without the module, right?
#

are you thinking like- rebake structure tables for the ultras, normal structure rules for everything else, or?

indigo oasis
#

This is the first i'm hearing of the module so apologies if this is a bit ignorant. But looking at the settings of the Module, it appears there's no option to selectively disable the module- meaning even though Ultras would be using CRB structure rules, all the other NPCs would be using Rebake Structure rules. Wheras I'd want to have CRB structure rules apply to all NPCs

spice aspen
#

um... just don't run the module, then ^^;;

indigo oasis
#

While also fixing the Legendary issue I mean

#

Doing both at the same time

#

I forgot to add that

spice aspen
#

at that point all the module would really be doing is just fixing the legendary thing. which, like... I mean, I guess I could see it, but this is the first time I've had someone ask about it

indigo oasis
#

Yeah that that's what I'm asking if it would be possible to do

#

No worries if not tho there's always manually replacing the feature with CRB legendary anyhow

spice aspen
#

I... guess it'd be possible? but I'm not sure it'd ever really come up, as I've not been asked about it by anyone else. I'm not sure there'd be much of a target audience for me to want to spend the energy on it

indigo oasis
#

Fair nuff

#

I thought that'd be the case just thought I'd ask

spice aspen
#

it seems counterintuitive to have a module to do a specific thing and then add a setting to disable all of its functionality except for a specific workaround for a vanilla system bug

indigo oasis
#

Valid

spice aspen
#

so yeah, I will gently say probably not right now, I'd just replace manually. but if you want to mess with the code a bit on your own end to facilitate it then theoretically all it should take is a text editor and a minute or two; you'd just want to find module.js, open it, and then delete the whole function starting with Hooks.once( and ending with });. that should decouple out all of the logic and run regular structure stuff for everything while also keeping the workaround

indigo oasis
#

Good to know!

spice aspen
#

I'd have to budget time and energy to implement a setting that isn't destructive to the original code, but hacksawing out the unwanted parts without the concern (because the whole point is to disable it) is way easier and should have no drawbacks

#

don't quote me on that ofc, I haven't tested it to know, but

indigo oasis
#

Yeyeye I getcha

brisk flax
#

So to be honest, I feel siege armor on it is somewhat less necessary now that it can freely move across the map and mag gauntlet someone into its grasp

zenith sapphire
#

so mag gauntlet takes the role of coercing pc to move into range 3 instead of goad them into circumventing siege

brisk flax
#

In many cases where I've dropped resistance traits I compensated with increased HP, but the goliath already has enough HP that I feel adding more on top of that risks becoming a slog once you move into multiple structure templates and the like, because that extra HP gets multiplied

#

that is, I think 30 base HP becoming 60 base HP on a veteran, or 140 base HP on an Ultra, is simply too much

#

My advice here, if you want a more survivable goliath, is to use support units

#

part of the rebake's top down angle is that NPC inter-comp synergies should be more incentivized

#

pair it with a Priest, give it a Latch Drone, etc

zenith sapphire
#

🤔
ic

brisk flax
#

like siege armor isn't a case where I don't see the vision, I do, but I would rather the goliath be less of a paracausal mod/fabi check and more just "yeah he has a lot of HP and also he can fuck with you from a distance"

#

Crush Targeting is no longer recharge, you have coercive force and mag gauntlet, it can walk straighter paths to targets and move + boost gives you 6 spaces per round which on a size 3 unit isn't nothing

#

if players decide to focus fire the goliath, that's sort of the goliath's job, and in a much more direct and less counter-to-the-gimmick way than an avenger or something

#

also, while none of the rebake components are designed with one another in mind like some sort of "you must use X to get the full value of Y," the revised structure damage tables mean that just slapping veteran or elite on a goliath gives you a pretty durable brick

#

50 effective HP, no chance of losing your gun or going bust and getting stunned, etc

bold crystal
#

towering stride is really good for mobility in general honestly, it does the job of 'keeping the goliath from being trapped behind a small rock' very well

brisk flax
#

it also makes allied mobility stuff more rewarding for it, which is another angle you can pursue

restive fable
#

I did the Priest/Goliath combo for my wife's sitrep recently and it was terrifyingly tanky

it didn't help that the Priest dodged 3 tempest charged blade attacks with accuracy in a row

brisk flax
restive fable
#

wife made the priests grapple the goliath to become a horrible lil defensive backpack

#

it does prevent the Goliath from overwatching but it's pretty funny

brisk flax
#

It's a very natural pairing, the Goliath gives the Priest a big chunk of hard cover to post up next to and the Goliath keeps a walking pace that can't really outdistance the Priest, pair it with something like Attractor Field, slap Dispersal Shield on the Goliath, etc

restive fable
#

and without siege armor Goliaths could use the resistance boost

brisk flax
#

yeah that's basically where I'm at with the siege armor issue

#

want this guy to be tankier? you have tools for that, it's called other NPCs

rose hamlet
#

Bastion/Goliath buddy pairing incoming

#

Nobody expects the Double Defender comps

brisk flax
#

I'm working on an extremely rude idea for an Ultra Bastion setup that uses Argus Armor in conjunction with the Close Protection veteran trait

indigo oasis
#

Not nearly as rude as an Argus Armor Goliath so don’t worry about it

#

Oh wait it clicked

#

Okay still rude but in a fun way

#

Tho depending on the tier Argus Armor makes Close Protection worse after the bastion loses 2 or 1 structure/stress

#

Actually it only get worse after 2 structure/stress regardless of tier

tulip hawk
#

It's not really any balance/rules reporting per se but last night I ran the Rebake Tom Special outlined by Kai in their PDF for 5 pilots, Holdout, with the extra assault instead of grunts, and that opfor really put the pressure on the players, it was a literal trial by fire for their first combat. Only optional I spring for was Stack Up for the Bastion, everything else was default and Players only just eeked out a win with the Chomo balance-controlling two npcs off the point in the last round. One player was down to their very last structure with 3 HP left and a couple more had taken 1 or 2 structure/stress between them

Lot of fun had by all, Rebakes keep winning, great stuff!

indigo oasis
#

Question about the Rebake version of Bodyguard- is the Overwatch part of the reaction mandatory, or is it optional like the movement? Asking for the sake of being able to repeatedly use the bonus movement if you- for example- don’t have Eye of Midnight active

#

The phrasing has “may” used when it comes to the movement, and in the same sentence just uses a comma and “then” when it comes to using Overwatch. Which makes it sound like the “may” applies to both parts of the reaction maybe?

stone ore
#

Also how did you handle the Holdout reinforcements?

tulip hawk
# stone ore how experienced were your players? Because I was going to use ALMOST exactly the...

They were almost brand new, with several of them not knowing how to play and a couple of them only having one or two one shots under their belt.

I guess my advice is it's supposed to be tough. Even in an actual campaign losing the sitrep doesn't mean everyone dies, you just move on with the new narrative consequence. By design it's supposed to be a hard fight, and while one player almost died from full health, there were still three others who had barely taken a scratch, or hadn't lost more than 1 structure/stress

tulip hawk
#

Holdout is listed as a double budget encounter so I just doubled every npc I had and put them in the wings to wait for their turn to spawn.

#

Minus one assault, for no particular reason.

stone ore
tulip hawk
#

Ah, I get that. Thankfully these new players still had a lot of fun, in spite of the constant burning alive, because they could see the engagement and the payoff the of the system I guess. Your mileage may vary, but you could always tone it down by an assault or hive if you feel your party is NOT going to jive with the down-to-the-wire skirmish.

minor tundra
#

Heya! Prepping for a one-shot and planning to take the Rebakes out for a spin, has anyone made an LCP for the Suldan ones?

brisk flax
#

uhhhhh probably not I don't think

brisk flax
#

I haven't really been working on any others as I'm finalizing the wallflower stuff and working on the opfor files, but there's that

#

also if it becomes necessary:

Gladiator
Crowdpleaser
Trait, Full Action
The Gladiator gains a Haymaker Die, 1d6, starting at 6. Each time the Gladiator takes the Ram or Grapple actions, or attacks with the Maul Fist, reduce the value of the Haymaker Die by 1. When the Haymaker Die reaches 1, the Gladiator may reset it to 6 and, as a full action, perform a staggering blow against an adjacent character. That character is knocked back 4 spaces, knocked Prone, and they must pass a Hull save or become Jammed until the end of their next turn.```
twin reef
#

It doesn't deal damage?

brisk flax
#

Nope, just a control tool

#

deterministic knockback 4 + prone plus a save vs Jammed

indigo oasis
#

Yeah that’s a much bigger effect against a player than it would be against an NPC

minor tundra
#

gotcha gotcha, duly noted AkkoStudy wasn't expecting it to be the case, I think I should be able to tweak units in VTT to fit these just fine though 😌

#

(sadly not planning to try out the new gladiator, as much as I love the OG - just loads and loads of conscripts)

indigo oasis
#

Crossclassing with Earthshatter is doing wonders for me wanting to make an NPC Zheng Analog

indigo oasis
#

You know it just occurred to me rebake Supreme Logistics would be equally as handy with a Rebake Bombard ally as it would be a Rebake Sniper ally. The former essentially gains extra attack reliability as it can just fire nonstop with extra effects and not caring if it can target multiple characters or not. Elite Bombard + Ultra Priest w/ Supreme Logistics- hmmm

#

Sniper would benefit yes, but the Ultra would need to be mobile w/ the Sniper in order to let its attack reliability keep up and not fall victim to "not able to draw LoS", tho Supreme Mobility does help with that

vale crescent
#

Anything from the WF rebakes that wants more dire testing?

smoky bluff
#

There are only 4 NPCs, but i'll say i've seen the least for Striders and the spite always seem to have some issues when being used

#

For Avenger, i've seen quite a few and Lurkers also recieved some attention but i think some optional were never mentioned, so those can be tested

brisk flax
vale crescent
#

Cool

#

Any particular optionals?

brisk flax
indigo oasis
#

Survival Knife seems useful, yes, I just dunno if it’s useful in comparison

#

I might give it to my playtest Striders just to see but I’m playing them as more artillery than striker so idk

#

Survival Knife seems useful if you plan for the strider to main Skirmisher kit rather than main Marksman Kit- but if you plan on swapping kits frequently it seems less useful due to the fact that the swap bonuses are really good + action demanding (Marksman Swap Bonus encourages you to fire the Rifle right now, Skirmisher Kit allows you to basically Barrage with the Carbine)

#

Then again I haven’t experimented with playing Strider in a way that forgoes the Swap Bonuses in favor of the Kit bonuses so maybe that makes the knife more useful

brisk flax
#

I mean, part of taking an optional is the assumption that you're actually going to play with that optional in mind rather than just taking it to take it, imo

#

if you plan to largely be focusing on sharpshooting or a back-and-forth dynamic then maybe the knife's value goes down but it's kind of like, you made that sandwich

indigo oasis
#

I understand that, I’m just trying to imagine what strider playstyle that involves the Knife exists that is better than just using the base traits, which feels difficult

#

That’s not actual feedback this is just brainstorming on how to use the knife as a GM

brisk flax
#

The survival knife isn't really an "engagement tool" or a "this makes barrage better" type thing, it's a control and disengagement tool, so my initial impression is that it isn't inherently something that works as well on a proactive basis, you aren't looking to use it like a Berserker's Harpoon Cannon or a Specter's Machine Pistol

indigo oasis
#

It’s probably useful if you never swap off Skirmisher Kit, but then you have to manually retrieve the knife or find an opportunity to swap kits. If you’re gonna barrage to slow + Knockback, you’re likely gonna be using the Kit bonus to leave engagement and not have an engage penalty on the Carbine

If you never leave Marksman Kit it could combo well with the Flash Grenade while also not wasting the Kit Bonus, as a one time emergency before needing to swap.

If you’re trying to swap regularly it could be useful when swapping into the Skirmisher Kit, throw the Knife then Swap to fire the Carbine, but that’s making you choose between using the Kit Bonus, the Flash Grenade, and just Barraging with the Skirmisher kit.

And if you’re swapping into the Marksman Kit you’re gonna lack the actions to use it and probably not be in the right range band anyway.

So the Knife seems most helpful when you plan to stay in a kit, but only really the one time when you throw it as the Strider doesn’t particularly enjoy staying in engagement.

indigo oasis
#

As a disengagement tool it seems useful I will admit

#

It’s mostly just me trying to do Turn Planning if I ever use the Knife- or when, as I think after mapping this out I would like to put this on the Striders I have coming up

indigo oasis
#

You know what I just realized about cutting Viper's Speed? That works way better as a Sitrep specific modifier rather than an NPC trait. Validating that call yet again.

indigo oasis
#

Rebake Demolisher Build I highly recommend checking out:

Commander for Press the Attack
Marine for Battering Ram

The entire conceit of the build is to use Earthshatter as a crutch. Before the rebake a Demolisher couldn’t Overwatch- NOW it can do so in response to an ally being damaged while also doing so at range 5, placing down some hard cover, AND dealing Knockback to the aggressor.

Moreover, Earthshatter naturally produces cover to consume with Battering Ram, essentially allowing the Demolisher to double boost in a way I personally see as fair.

It allows Demolisher to become a whole new level of Threat Defender, punishing those that attack its Allies before lunging at them to scare them away with the threat of Demo Hammer.

I just ran it- it’s a TON of fun having that tiny extra boost of speed and reaction attack, all the while feeling a lot more subdued than, say, a Mirage ally or using Acrobat, feeling more like a natural combo. Felt especially fun when going against my Zheng player- like yeah, I can destroy terrain for extra speed too

solid pilot
#

What's Marine from again?

vale crescent
#

Winter scar

minor tundra
#

Got to take the rebake NPCs for a whirl for the first time tonight! I’m sure I’m late to the party on this but the rebake sniper is a thing of beauty to pilot 😌

#

The conscript rebake is also pretty fun - the particulars of my custom sitrep meant they didn’t get to shine much as bodyguards, but they feel as good as ever and the detpack is hilarious

brisk flax
#

Everyone loves the detpack

young turtle
#

more like deadpack

brittle cipher
#

The innate human urge to throw satchel charges

dapper plover
#

The innate human urge to throw

#

chuckster instinct

twin reef
#

That's actually one of the things that makes humans unique. No other animal can throw an arbitrary object as hard or as precisely as a human.

indigo oasis
#

Uh. Gorillas? Chimpanzees?

twin reef
subtle nacelle
#

Have you ever seen meteor-hammer trickshots, or yoyo tricks? that shit is insane and no animal has the dexterity to do that

dapper plover
vestal jackal
#

The day chimpanzees can bottle flip… humanity is lost

twin reef
#

What would break if I gave a rebake Sentinel this optional?

Outboard Stabilizers
System
When the Sentinel has Eye of Midnight active and would be involuntarily moved by another character's attack or failing a save forced by another character, it may deactivate Eye of Midnight to become Immune to that movement.

brittle cipher
#

Very little, it's the Marine template's deck anchors but with a much higher startup and opportunity cost

brisk flax
#

Yeah, fundamentally you could just take deck anchors and call it a day, if anything this is exceedingly generous to the players as rebake Eye of Midnight is very potent

brisk flax
#

Still plugging away at things, I'm now up to 10 OPFORs which means I'm (aspirationally) halfway through, and I've begun expanding upon the other content as well. So far I've discussed double budgeting and reinforcements along with the pitfalls of faction lists and how you can work within those restrictions, I'm also looking at discussing map design and maybe some other topics as well

📎 NPCs_Rebaked_-_OPFOR_Files.pdf
indigo oasis
#

Big fan of all the Ultra OpFors, they get really weird with it in a way a standard OpFor don’t tend to and creatively make use of the whole package. The other sitreps also have a lot of strong general use cases.

#

It’s a good contrast- the non-Ultra OpFor act as “this is how you lean into what these NPCs do” and the Ultra ones go for “this is how far you can take this concept.” One sets a standard and the other pushes limits, giving a good breadth to get folks brainstorming.

vale crescent
#

Ran more striders in a playtest... Unnfortuntately I had inconclusive data... They existed and shot some people but survival knife was never used 😭

brisk flax
#

rip

brisk flax
#

Thinking about Empower Shroud based on this feedback from the Iphigenia at Midnight thread wherein someone used double Elite Lurkers with Empower Shroud, whereupon a Recharge 4+ was firing with some regularity. I'm rolling this over in my head and it seems like a tricky one to square. I can see the vision behind making the shroud harder to clear (two hits instead of one) because otherwise you can empower a shroud, have it get popped, and you've broadly accomplished nothing for your trouble, but the way it can scale with additional actions is making me wonder if I might need to look at something other than Recharge for it

#

My initial thought, which isn't in any way finalized or committed to yet, is thus:

System, Quick Action, Recharge 4+
The Lurker expands an existing Shroud Zone to Burst 2. This can cause it to envelop other characters. In addition, it now takes two successful attacks to disperse the zone instead of one. Only a single Shroud Zone can be empowered this way at a time; if the Lurker empowers another Shroud Zone, the previous empowered Shroud Zone dissipates.```

You can't really "disempower" a shroud zone because of the weird "second hit" thing which makes it awkward, an empowered shroud zone could be hit once, not die, then it becomes disempowered...do you make the GM track that and have it "die" at that point as it's reduced to "1 HP," or do you let the extra hit ride as a freebie in which case it feels pretty much like you didn't lose anything
#

(Also having to upsize and then downsize shroud zones repeatedly seems like a pain in the ass)

#

This dynamic, if implemented, would mean that a Lurker using Empower Shroud a second time would essentially have to be "down a zone" until their next turn though, and I'm not sure I care for that because it means it's possible to end up backed into a really unfortunate corner

indigo oasis
#

The thing is is that, effectively, they'll still have "at least 2 shrouds" on the field regardless if you go by "number of hits to remove all shrouds" and "number of spaces covered", plus Defensive Shroud + Umbral Shift give Lurkers enough options to retreat to a Shroud if they are down a shroud.

Basically, they're Lurkers, they can handle eating shit.

#

Defensive Shroud being a part of the base kit is particularly big in this regard

#

I don't think the rebake lurkers can really be caught down a shroud/without a shroud unless they get really focus fired or didn't plan ahead well enough

#

And empower shroud deleting a shroud zone doesn't really mitigate that fact

brisk flax
#

The issue as I see it is thusly: if a Lurker is down to two shrouds (one empowered, one not) and uses Empower Shroud, then they now go down to one empowered shroud, and have nothing to teleport to. It's opt in, but it feels like a big potential stumbling block. Generating a new shroud with Defensive Shroud doesn't do anything for that particular circumstance

brisk flax
# 
System, Quick Action
The Lurker expands an existing Shroud Zone to Burst 2. This can cause it to envelop other characters. In addition, it now takes two successful attacks to disperse the zone instead of one. This system can't be used again unless the previously empowered Shroud Zone is destroyed or the Lurker chooses to dissipate the previously empowered Shroud Zone when it next activates this system.``` This might work a bit better
heavy condor
#

I think that should work well

zenith sapphire
#

not sure what to feel about umbral clone, getting a flat new activation, even a recharge 6+ feels iffy, moreso coupled with grunt template not a thing with rebaked master doc
can I suggest an alternative along the line of treating a specific shroud as valid for drawing LoS and effect kinda like ibeji or didymos, avoid busting the economy or suddent lurker double down jump scare, and recharging when the shroud is destroyed or smth?
or something along the line of doppleganger used for drawing effects and actions rather than pulling out a spare grunt.

heavy condor
#

I did end up using that because i thought it looked cool, but i reserved it for when my last remaining lurker was on its last structure, something of a Last Stand power-up

#

They ended up getting murked the turn they spawned so the jury's still out on that one

#

Perhaps something along the lines of it being only able to exist within shrouds? If its ever forced out or the shroud its in pops then its automatically killed?

zenith sapphire
#

there's nothing stopping people from popping it prematurely and tucking it nicely into a corner hidden

#

I mean sure you can avoid doing it out of niceties

#

but still a baseline invisible grunt in the zone is kinda painful

#

grunt specter.gif

heavy condor
#

But then again how much of this is the base lurker's fault and how much of it is two elite lurkers can at minimum make four shrouds a round

#

Discounting Empower Shroud entirely here

zenith sapphire
#

also the initial problem of poor action econ of popping the shroud is kinda still there, when there's nothing stopping the lurker from just flat popping one out again after you spend a qa to remove it.
Although probably the answer could be just letting the striker bring their own sys score/smart weapon and be done. That or anti invis. And then not cause for concern

#

although it would mean it is pretty resilient to tag team combo with a hacker or smth dispersing the cloud to force the lurker out before some other dedicated dmg dealer punch it

#

that and trying to drag it out when it could uhhhh just jump back in

zenith sapphire
indigo oasis
# brisk flax The issue as I see it is thusly: if a Lurker is down to two shrouds (one empower...

Kinda? But they can always make a new shroud at the start of their next turn, so they’ll pretty much always have a zone to teleport to for the purposes of Umbral Shift.

As for Defensive Shroud, unless the Empowered Zone is destroyed the Lurker can still teleport to spaces within the Empowered Shroud Zone, which while being a more narrow area is still somewhere, especially when it comes to melee

indigo oasis
#

IMO, choosing to dissipate an empowered Shroud Zone and being left with one shroud zone period sounds like a strategic choice of the Lurker imo, and not necessarily one you should worry about GMs not making because- at the very least I myself- would not spam Empower Shroud recklessly

brisk flax
#

There is a difference between the lurker replacing zones someone else has destroyed and replacing zones they themselves destroy during their own turn in terms of "how many zones are available" which can be relevant

brisk flax
zenith sapphire
#

well, playtest with sergeant spawning grunts

#

slightly adjacent but still mostly gut based

#

so I guess sorry

brisk flax
#

Okay then until it's actual playtest feedback I'm sorry but I'm not going to make extremely substantial changes to an ability

zenith sapphire
#

cheers

brisk flax
#

If you WANT to put it through the wringer and let me know how it goes I will happily take that feedback, and this goes for anyone else

indigo oasis
zenith sapphire
#

Considering ||The End|| have defensive shroud as an optional, I could probably use the spare optional slot for the doppelganger

#

might as well slap the vet trait on it to pressure test it a bit

indigo oasis
# brisk flax Because it now lets you use it again if someone else destroys the zone which is ...

I still don’t see how the wording itself differs. I understand the recharge tag was removed, but what does the new phrasing do that the old phrasing doesn’t? If the wording is different I feel like it’s supposed to do something else that I’m missing- as far as I can read they both effectively dissipate the existing empowered shroud should empower shroud be used again.

From what I can gather from your response that only addresses the recharge tag.

#

Which doesn’t fix your issue of “using empower with an existing empowered shroud leaves the Lurker down a shroud”

brisk flax
#

Part of the issue that was reported is that the recharge 4+ is simply not working super great with this with higher activation lurkers like elites

#

I'm thinking that if I'm going to go this route (can't have more than one zone) that I might as well just remove the recharge clause while I'm at it

#

If anything the bigger issue I guess is noting that shrouds aren't "locked" to one particular lurker which makes that dynamic harder to employ so I might need another way of going about it

indigo oasis
#

So regardless of optionals you do need to track which lurkers deploy what shroud zones

#

So maybe adding “deployed/created by the Lurker” to the phrasing would be useful to make Shroud Empowering exclusive to Shrouds associated with their respective lurker

#

Then again, stuff like “Absolute Darkness” implies that it only affects Shroud Zones produced by the Lurker with the optional so prolly not necessary

#

… wait it doesn’t actually- that might be something worth addressing

#

Because all the other Lurker Traits key off of Any Shroud Zone rather than the Lurker’s Shroud Zones

brisk flax
#

On the subject of Umbral Clone, if I change anything about it, it'll probably be to do something along the lines of making it Limited 1 rather than trying to do a thing about "using shroud zones for targeting" because like okay, say you use the whip indirectly through a zone, where does the target get pulled to? Adjacent to the Lurker, who isn't there?

indigo oasis
zenith sapphire
#

Wait, do the clone only use umbral shift and scouring whip means that it uses only 2 out of the 4 base kit, or it only have these actions as an npc, and is locked out of boost, hide, etc?

brisk flax
#

@carmine idol @subtle nacelle pinging you but I know it's the holidays please do not feel compelled to do lcp updates during thanksgiving, just so you know

#

okay so let's break this down:

  1. still no fucking strider changes I CANNOT MAKE BRICKS WITHOUT CLAY
    2). oh shit it's the operator update I talked about
    3). lots of lurker adjustments, all for various reasons, some I've discussed earlier, some are newer. One of the big new and undiscussed changes is to Absolute Darkness, which now requires the Lurker to be in the shroud zone that isolates people, the reason is that this way there's no confusion over "if a Lurker with Absolute Darkness and a Lurker without are in the same opfor, does Absolute Darkness apply to ALL shroud zones?" Fuck keeping track of things, all my homies hate keeping track of things, we're all dumb as hell
    4). some Spite changes mainly for clarity, but the big one is the addition of COOL NEW NAMES for Edicts so you can now torment your friends in style
#

With all of this said and done, this means I am probably NOT going to aim to push the Wallflower NPCs live in December like I had originally planned, it's POSSIBLE I will set the ball rolling but at this point I'm reserving the right to push it to January so these things can maybe get a little more shakedown

minor tundra
#

YIPPEE!!!!!! 🎉

indigo oasis
brisk flax
#

"undiscussed" as in "I did not previously, or even currently, state I would be making this change"

indigo oasis
#

Fair lol, was making a funny

#

Anyway this changes nothing for my play test yet again lol

#

I’m already packing templates on my playtest NPCs so I’m unsure if I wanna pile more optionals on my Wallflower NPCs, but it really does seem like the optionals need more playtesting than the base kits

#

I’ll prolly give Empowered Shroud or Absolute Darkness to my Lurkers, and in addition to the knife maaaaybe… idk, Spare Parts and Weathering are kinda just “generic good optionals not really tied into the Strider playstyle specifically”, I already have the knife, so it’s really just the Loadout Optionals and that feels too loaded

brisk flax
#

spare parts would be fine to test, the problem is people keep forgetting to use it

indigo oasis
#

I’ll throw it in then- either that or weathering since the Sitrep has difficult terrain

#

I wanna use Kinetic Transference especially since the AP removal is something I’m curious about testing, so it’s a matter of choosing between Absolute Darkness (no more action sink so easier to use with the other optional) and Empower Shroud (just really good)

indigo oasis
#

For the purposes of getting more data, if I gave my 2 regular Lurkers one optional and my Veteran (w/ Seeded Shadows) Reinforcement Lurker a different optional, who do you think should get Empowered Shroud vs Absolute Darkness?

brisk flax
#

I think Empowered Shroud on multiple lurkers is in a similar ballpark to "multiple activations lurker" that I would lean in that direction to see how it fares in terms of stress testing

#

Basically, the issue with Empower Shroud being identified is "if this keeps happening frequently enough, it starts to discourage interacting with Shrouds because they keep getting reinforced"

indigo oasis
#

Makes sense to me- new Absolute Darkness on a templated lurker is also useful for making sure jt doesn’t die as fast should it dive into the fray to enforce the darkness

#

I could in theory do the same thing with my striders, but I already color coded my Lurkers + I’m guaranteed to drop my Lurker reinforce vs my Strider reinforce being a pure “Just In Case” thing so. Yeah

brisk flax
smoky bluff
#

Ran an extraction Sitrep with Striders and survival knife and its brought some interesting results

Players

  • Assault Rifle/War pike Thermal Charged Amber Phantom [Core Power Used, Target Chomolungma] End of encounter, on 7/21 HP but no lost structure or stress, overcharged twice
  • Hor_Us 1 Flicker Field Chomolungma [Core Power Used, Hit 6 out of 8 targeted enemies] End of encounter, Stressed twice and on 10/19 HP, overcharged thrice
  • Cathammer/ Bolt-thrower Roland Chamber Stortebeker, End of encounter, on 15/24 HP, Overcharged twice
  • Daisy Cutter/ Decksweeper Gilgamesh, End of encounter, on 3/21 hp Stressed once and exposed, Overcharged 4 times

Op-For
3 Striders with Recon Kit, Survival Knife and Weathering
Commander Demolisher Military Discipline
Engineer
Assassin
Priest
2 Vet Self Repair Barricade

This was a pick-up game

The Map was a deep valley where movement tools are of extreme importance, however, the best the players got are RBJJs with the Stortebeker and Chomolungma not having any at all despite the warnings. This greatly improved the value of the slowed debuff.

Notable Moments with the striders

The striders, when making use of hard cover, are quite evasive and can take a hit. Due to the prevalence of autostab, hard cover is more valuable than soft and it extended the lives of 2 of the Striders immensely while facing off a Daisy Cutter Gilgamesh and a Bolt throwing Stortebeker, I probably should've given them spare parts to make them even more annoying.

Slow was incredibly valuable, with a wall in front of the players to climb, the barricades turned the top of the map into a hazardous area and the striders in the river valley harassed and slowed the climb, preventing the Gilgamesh from boosting with RBJJ to the top to start injuring the Barricades and help the Amber Phantom, forcing the Gilgamesh to burn through Daisy cutter rounds trying to hit the dug in and evasive Striders.

Recon Kit was used to break Gilgamesh hidden when the Striders arrived in as reinforcements and - alongside Skirmisher Kit bonus - avoid triggering overwatch from both Stortebeker and Gilgamesh on multiple occasions. Reposition for the 2 to first arrive was not used to their best ability due to being stuck in the valley channel and not many places to run to. The third however did have a great used case which I will get to later.

Survival Knife, I was using it more than the explosive carbine due to the lack of good angles i can get to make full use of the weapon's knockback 3 but it had a pro-found effect that the players could not ignore since it slowed the advance of the other 2 strikers, leaving the Amber Phantom, who simply wasn't close enough to be targeted, to deal with the rest of the forces on top of the valley, that being the 2 barricades, Demolisher and Engineer. Forcing it to use Core Power alongside the Chomolungma to hack everybody on top of the cliff to give it the breathing room it needed to not get swarmed, jamming the Engineer to prevent it from using it's turrets, preventing the demolisher's approach and cooking off a Barricade's reactor, causing it to become exposed. Which the Amber Phantom brutally dispatched

The next notable moment is when the third strider coming in from another ingress joined in, honing in on the Chomolungma, after failing a tech attack and a swap kit to the marksmen kit, The Strider gotten close enough to the Chomolungma that it threw a flashbang grenade and a survival knife on it, disabling it for an entire turn where it had to stabilize, overcharge and boost to get away. This strider forced the Gilgamesh to peel off the other striders to blast it to 1 HP with the decksweeper, getting low rolls however.

By this point, the extraction became the top priority of the party and they all quickly used their overcharges to boost and get away as quickly as possible to the extractions, thanks to the efforts of the Striders, they bought enough time for the barricades to set up a bunch of

image.png
#

hazards that made this game closer than it had to be, the last strider made use of reposition to catch up to the party and almost kidnapped the chomolungma by grappling it and stabbing it again with a survival knife, however, it was a chomolungma, so it BCL the strider and crawled it's way to the Objective zone and everyone was able to extract in time.

#

For striders trying to make the most out of being more of a skirmisher than a Marksmen, I'd say that the best way to make use of the strider in this role is to be a bully, Never pick fights against a defender or striker as thats how striders fucking die

#

Rather Striders should make use of their mobility to harrass support or controllers with their fast movement speed and their ability to reposition on the fly to force players to burn resources to catch up

#

but playing striders as skirmishers is a quick way to kill a strider as they are artillery npcs by nature, its just that in a match up of a strider against something that doesn't pack the nessesary firepower, the strider can and should use skirmisher kit or marksmen kit's flashbang to make their life hard.

I'd actually go and say that Marksmen kit's flashbang and Survival knife is a much better combo to pull off than Explosive carbine and Survival Knife as doing that basically stunned a player and forced them to burn resources to escape from that engagement as much as possible since they cannot clear blind and could not use any of their abilities (This will not work on melee players but everybody else, its a good combo)

#

Also, approaching from behind is great for a strider if the players are incentivised to go to a certain direction like in extraction, a strider approaching from the other direction force them into a dilemma, chase the skirmisher kit Strider or ignore it and allow it to change into a marksmen kit Strider and hit you for 10 damage

brisk flax
#

Dang, thanks for the very extensive writeup. Sounds like a successful excursion all around, and not just with the survival knife but also this is some of the first Recon Kit feedback I've gotten as well

smoky bluff
#

it helps that there were 2 recon kit Striders, allowing them to basically both play off each other when it calls for it, but they died too fast for it to really play a major roll since the 2 strikers killed them

#

Since it was an extraction, the players did not have any enemies on the board at the first round, so they hid, having recon kit broke that strategy

#

I could've used it more against the flicker field chomolungma, but a lot of the time, my striders were stuck in skirmisher kit due to being so close to the action to make use of Recon Marksmen Kit to break invis

#

Having Reposition being stucked to only sensors really hurt the striders though, since the Chomolungma share similar Sensor ranges

#

That means when the Chomolungma wanted a Strider to move, because i was playing so aggressively with my striders, they could not reposition their way out of a Brilliance

rose hamlet
smoky bluff
#

However, the Striders did their jobs, they tied down 2 strikers and bought time with their lives

#

I think having a Strider Priest Combo would actually be crazy since with recon kit, both the Strider and Priest can play off each other in a way

#

Priest fortifies the Strider against tech attackers and the Strider becomes more survivable all round, while having stuff like spare parts and recon skirmisher kit to help the priest reposition

#

although that does mean that the Strider needs to stay in skirmisher kit to keep the priest safe from overwatches

#

A player did note that the Rebake's Strider is much more powerful than the Core Rulebook, however, Map layout did play a crucial part as to why that is the case, without the challenge of scaling a wall, the strider's slow wouldn't have done much to be meaningful, although that can be said for any slowed effects applied

brisk flax
#

A player did note that the Rebake's Strider is much more powerful than the Core Rulebook the thing is, it's not a very uncommon opinion that the base wallflower Strider is pretty lacking as an NPC

#

"this bad thing is now much more powerful" I mean I should hope so because my goal isn't "design a thing that's bad, just in a different way"

smoky bluff
#

Also another point, A Strider trying to do a Explosive Carbine, Survival knife Barrage is almost always ineffective, the presence of Armor and the access of a Rifle that will do more damage makes this combo not really as appealing, the combo is more so to force a player off. This did happen during the game, when a strider on 2 HP blasted the Gilgamesh away from overwatch range, applied slow on the Stortbeker with the knife, successfully dodged an overwatch attack from the stortebeker and escape by using his speed to climb the cliff surface, but the next round, the stortebeker gave chased and finished it off, since it did not climb as far as it would like and the Stortbecker had a decent agility-investment

#

Survival knife is more of an upgrade to the Marksmen Kit than the Skirmisher Kit although it being available no matter what kit means the Strider is just stronger than base simply by having it

#

swapping kit to retrieve it can be a pain at times though, kinda wish it just returns to the user at the end of their turn since I played so aggressively with my striders that it was not always worth swapping to marksmen kit

#

maybe if the map was bigger, but still dense with difficult terrain and other hard cover, the strider could make use of more retreat angles to keep players on their toes

#

or perhaps there was a strategy that i missed with the Survival knife and Marksmen kit, I certainly feel like what I've done is simply surface level

#

maybe a Veteran Strider, Veteran Priest should be my next combo i should test, Having the Priest's Power Rerouting could make for a meaningful change for the Strider since whenever it swap kits, it can get rid of their marksmen rifle ordnance and with overcharge, it can attack twice with it

#

Having Ranger Training could be interesting too

indigo oasis
indigo oasis
#

My theories were admittedly more pessimistic than I was hoping

indigo oasis
indigo oasis
smoky bluff
#

At the very least, marksmen kit does have the flashbang which i didn't really knew paired so well with the survival knife, it was only after i hit the chomolungma that i discovered how potent the combo was

#

If anything, the survival knife allows me to play more aggressively with my striders since even at range 5 and with the marksmen kit, the strider can simply hit you with a hell of a combo and it doesn't even have to swap kits to do it. Although now the flashbang is on a hefty cooldown reroll

#

Which is great since the skirmisher kit is all about positioning and allowing for aggressive play, swapping into it mean that you'll get your knife back too

indigo oasis
#

Since I do have a melee maniac but they’re a Zheng Grappler and I have a Mirage so I should be fine

smoky bluff
#

A change in mindset help, having striders just go "fuck it, we ball" really helps with just throwing them at the striker grinder

#

No cowardly sniper here, just raw gas and a will to throw hands

#

that +4 modifier be doing things to low evasion players

indigo oasis
#

Yeah the Zheng is uh. A little dodgy. But we manage.

smoky bluff
#

it definitely helps if the strider isn't the only one diving the zheng

#

someone who can maybe lock on or impair to make the survival knife or flashbang easier to land

#

A commander Ronin perhaps?

indigo oasis
#

I’ve had the Sitrep planned for a while- the Zheng is definitely not gonna be taken on alone

#

The only other striker I have is 2-3 Lurkers to be fair BUT I also have a 3rd party defender/controller that can mess with him + 2 Hornet reinforces

carmine idol
brisk flax
brisk flax
indigo oasis
#

Thank you stebb!

vale crescent
#

Thanks Stebb

restive fable
#

Thank

sour mist
#

is discussing SitRep compositions appropriate here (assuming I'm using the rebake), or something I should take to Gm Corner?

brisk flax
#

Also yes, you can discuss them here

sour mist
#

I'm planning a mission out, and I'm 100% stealing some of the OpFors in that document

#

but I wanted some feedback on the ones that I haven't copied :p

brisk flax
#

Yeah go for it

sour mist
#

Inspired by this map: https://bsky.app/profile/siegefault.bsky.social/post/3m66a6sip4c2l

I want to do an Extraction sitrep, where the objective is locating in the Cargo area, and the OpFor is the ship's crew. I figured that the enemy spawn zones would be immediately fore and aft of the cargo - a bit harder to deal with than normal, but also the extraction objective is potentially closer to the extraction zone than normal, so maybe it balances out?

Anyway, for comp:

image.png
⋮⋮⋮ ＳＩＥＧＥ (@siegefault.bsky.social)

what can i say, i like creating arenas of violence.

(but hexagons are bestagons)

-# Katherine Stark (@kastark.bsky.social)
All of this happens within tight technical constraints. There are specific size requirements, art and terrain placement needs to work for both hexes and squares (no mean feat!!), maps need to be usable and readable on VTT and when printed out. Each of these offer a significant technical challenge.

Bluesky ·
#

what I intended, but maybe haven't achieved, is this: make the PCs have to choose between working their way along the ship, potentially with some difficult terrain being added, or going out in space... and having all the turrets shoot them with +1 accuracy.

And a few options for hauling people out into the open

brisk flax
#

The squad is something I feel maybe a little iffy about, mainly because squads are a real specialist (point-camping tar pits) and Extraction is a much more "on the move" sitrep

sour mist
#

yeah, fair, the squad was mostly a fluff thing of being a squad of subalterns

brisk flax
#

Yeah I get it

#

I think you've got a good spread of damage and control, so what you could use more of is something like support

#

you have a Priest, but I'd maybe consider something else to go with them, maybe some grunts might flesh things out a bit

#

couple of support grunts

sour mist
#

that would make sense as being repair and maintenance frames

brisk flax
#

I see your Sentinel being the prime support target because the rest of your forces are a bit more robust, having templates, self-repair access, etc

sour mist
#

I made the Engineer an elite so as to get as many turrets set up as fast as possible.

brisk flax
#

The Engineer doesn't super care about Investiture, nor does the Barricade, though everyone loves Dispersal Shield. But the Engineer is pretty robust, and if the Barricade gets Veteran it has good sustain as well

#

The Archer might be a compelling choice as well tbh

sour mist
#

for a combination of fluff and sitrep balance reasons, I'm thinking maybe add a Gravity Rifle... somewhere. FOr fluff reasons I'd pick the Vehicle Barricade

#

I was picking the barricade for its optional ability to lay down difficult terrain, less for its printer, then I figured I'd give it vehicle and fluff it as being a tug/shuttle/sub-ship-size thingy

brisk flax
#

Gravity rifle and Titan-Snare Drone make a good combo

sour mist
#

Ooooh, good point

brisk flax
#

you can deploy the drone and immediately try to yank someone into its radius

#

also the gravity rifle wants a high save target user, so the barricade works well for that

sour mist
#

version 2:

image.png
brisk flax
#

I think that looks good

sour mist
#

okay, next fight is a Recon, but likewise changed - there's only two zones instead of 4, but the OpFor don't know which zone is the real one either. When a PCs scans a zone for the first time, they roll a d6: on 1-3 they've found the right zone, on a 4+ it's the other one.

image.png
brisk flax
#

Rather than +Archer at 4 PCs, I'd swap that with the +Scourer from 5 PCs and maybe not double up on the archers

#

that's a lot of ranged DPS

sour mist
#

the comp here was primarily inspired by fluff more than anything else: Goliath as a mech for moving around heavy loads, scourers as welders, support as the one doing repairs on shuttles, with only the archers as being professional guards

brisk flax
#

Maybe at the upper end something like making the Goliath an Elite

sour mist
#

yeah, I can do that

#

so something liek this?

image.png
#

"Stealing the shuttle will be easy, they've only got one military mech to guard the place"

the players then encounter the technically civilian Elite Goliath

brisk flax
#

Yeah

#

My take is multiple Archers get very gnarly because they're an NPC that sort of quasi self-multiplicatively scales because they can skirmish with the LMG and also do reaction attacks, and so two of them in an OPFOR is upwards of four potential attacks not accounting for optionals

#

you CAN do it, but mixing it with two other ranged strikers feels like you're going to get too much shooting and not enough anything else-ing

sour mist
#

fair point

#

thank you for this btw. I've been running for some months now, but never actually made my own opposite forces

#

I think I'll give the Goliath Industrial and swap the shotgun for mag clamps. Mostly for flavour reasons but also because it synergizes nicely with the Mag Gauntlet

indigo oasis
#

2 Questions:

  1. are Absolute Darkness + Empower Shroud high priority on the optional playtest list? If so I might drop playtesting Kinetic Transference because of optional budget stuff with a template I’m playtesting

  2. Which is a higher priority; Siege Loadout or Spare Parts? If they’re equally high priority than I may just drop testing Weathering

brisk flax
indigo oasis
#

Gotcha, in that case I’ll keep that template optional on the Strider along with Knife + Spare Parts, and let the lurkers have 2 lurker optionals

brisk flax
#

Hello and thank you all for participating in the NPCs Rebaked Project

image.png
young laurel
#

Glorious

tribal mason
#

Deserved

smoky bluff
#

Another Strider Playtest, This time its a Forest Mission With a Vet Strider and Vet Priest combo

A Oneshot with no Core Power except efficient so data can be flawed

Due to flavoring, the enemy went first as this is an ambushed, the Cataphract acted first but didn't do anything other than lock-on and move to a better position

Players

  • Terashima Caliban [Overcharge 3 times], Stressed Once, On 12/21 HP
  • Heavy Melee Weapon Lycan [Core Power Popped, Overcharge 3 times], Structured twice and Stressed once, On 9/17 HP
  • Prospector Kobold, [Overcharged 1 time] On 4/11 HP
  • Nanocomp Tachyon Tagetes, [Core Power Popped, Overcharged 2 times], On 11/17 HP

The team made 6 stabilize actions, if it weren't for that, many of them would've structured

Op For
Starting Forces

  • Cataphract
  • Breacher
  • 2 Archers
  • Industrial Support
  • Exotic Pyro, Regenerator, Chrono torus

Reinforcements

  • Breacher
  • Assault
  • Vet Strider with Spare Parts, Recon Loadout, Ranger Training, Weathering
  • Vet Priest, Feedback, Fortress, Power Rerouting

So the Strider was a highlight of the fight, entering alongside the priest from the player's own deployment zone and it did fairly poorly, although not to the strider's own fault. Its more so the fact that the team it was up against enemies that had the capabilities to destroy it if it didn't position properly with its partner, the priest. Luckily, they both survived due to the dilemma caused from spawning at the back instead of anywhere else where they can be intercepted, as that means that precious movement that can be used to push the objective would be taken away if they had gone close to the strider. Which would fall directly into my trap with the survival knife.

The Strider provided ample pressure alongside the extremely tanky pyro — which was another highlight enemy that caused a ton of problems for the players, acting as a great roadblock. It was able to pull off an double skirmish with the ranger long rifle, tagging the Kobold and Structuring the Lycan

image.png
#

Systems

  • For the Strider System, Recon Kit was great but also detrimental, having to stay in skirmisher kit to help move the priest was great and kept the Priest near the Strider so it can benefit from investiture and Power Rerouting but it also often meant that the Strider can't really do anything that turn other than lock on and fragsig due to the Ranger Rifle being its only other Long range weapon it can use to deal damage, and it having to stay in skirmisher kit to move it's allies means it can't swap kit to get the Marksmen swap bonus to double tap players with a overcharge ranger rifle combo. However, it this was an Ultra, this would've been a different story had i given it something cooler. No players hid and the Kobold was constantly on the move so it did not get invisibility, so Marksmen kit to pop invisibility was not often used, so i can't say much on that department. It also sort of limited the Strider's movement, since it cannot boost else it will outspeed it's partner and break the voliatle 5 range band, but i didn't find that to be a major problem since the priest also has to maintain this distance, although tactics with other npcs could be very different. I think a boost in its range would be nice, perhaps an allied within sensor range would suffice

  • Spare Parts saved the Strider, it got hit badly by a Tachyon Lance attack while in Marksmen Kit — I forgot the invisibility on adaptive camoflauge. With the Spare Parts, it was able to clear burn and get a chuck of its HP back as well, I also forgot that the Accuracy lasted until the end of its next turn, but it stayed as a skirmisher kit for the next turn and didn't get close so nothing much happened. Although, had the Tagetes built more damage, it would've structured and probably wouldn't have used the spare parts

  • Survival Knife, It goes really well with the Flashbang, I cannot stressed this enough. Combined, it's basically hitting a range 5 player fragsig on crack. I dared not used it in this fight since the Strider was a setpiece npc and there were 2 Players that can rip it to shreds [Lycan and Caliban], I only saved it had they dared approached, which both didn't bothered and focused on the objective. But I still got to use it, and its impact was noticable but useless in the grand scheme of things. Why? because the target I was going after was the Tagetes, and it had the Accelerate System. I tried to do the flashbang, survival knife trick on the Tagetes, but it passed it's agility save because it was not impaired. Had it failed, the Tagetes couldn't help their other teammates in both pushing the cart and giving them the extra speed that they needed to win eariler, but they would've probably had won in the end, the Kobold saved its prospector at the last few rounds and won them the game, but it was a good try from the Strider.

  • Ranger Training, It was useful, it having an effect on the Nanocomp Tachyon was noticable, greatly appreciated with the strider's modest E-defense and another way for a npc to counter seeking, it was capable of dodging had the players rolled badly, but other than that, there was not much effects noticed, Really paired well with weathering funnily

smoky bluff
#

A cool combo with the Strider's recon kit would probably be the Bastion

#

something tanky that can help it take hits or attention

#

Recon Kit doesn't work the best with a dedicated support like a scout or priest since both npcs and strider are quite squishy so its harder to approach the enemies and make use of the Skrimisher Kit without risking going up against a dedicated striker

#

With a Bastion, a Recon Kit Strider can make more Risky and Bold players while dragging its friendly piece of cover along with it

#

A bastion is also fast enough to maintain position with a Strider, more so with Recon Kit

brisk flax
#

Yeah I think a lot of the "friction points" you bring up are a case of specific pairings and tactics, i.e. wanting to have a Priest act as a dedicated battle buddy

#

that's not to say they don't exist but it's more a case of "this occurs in conjunction with the particulars of this opfor and the attempted strategies thereof"

smoky bluff
#

Yeah, the range for recon kit skirmisher probably wouldn't be much of an issue had there been allies that could stand in front of the strider like a bastion

brisk flax
#

I'm not really inclined to let the recon kit hand out free boosts because in general "give a boost" is a thing that you typically have to spend some sort of action or reaction on, rather than a thing that just happens for free

#

There's an OPPORTUNITY cost (stay in the kit) but that's a different sort of thing imo

smoky bluff
#

Recon kit doesn't really give a boost, more so it gives a way for an ally to make use of skirmisher 2 if they are close enough

#

But that distance can differ drastically depending on who is recieving it

brisk flax
smoky bluff
#

Oh i mean boost as in an improvement to its range, not so much of giving an allied character the ability to boost

brisk flax
#

oh okay sorry, I misunderstood, I thought you were suggesting a Boost rather than 2 spaces

smoky bluff
#

Yeah, i was thinking instead of range 5, it should be movement of 2 spaces to an allied character within sensor range

brisk flax
#

The Strider's sensor range is pretty big, even pared down in the rebake imo, so expanding the effect out to that far makes positioning way less relevant and I'm not sure I care for that here

#

like a big part of this imo is just Investiture is naturally kind of awkward

smoky bluff
#

Yeah i still need to test a few more combos with the recon kit — like i've mentioned with the bastion. It forcing you to stay within a kit is still quite the opportunity cost when that opportunity could be swapping to the ranger rifle to do damage at long ranges

brisk flax
#

I mean that's the name of the game with this strider rework

#

You're never OBLIGED to stay in one kit over another, swapping is always an option, you have choices

smoky bluff
#

True, staying within a kit for the recon marksmen is certainly useful situationally, and i can see it with the recon skirmisher kit, but from the naming scheme it just sort of screams "i want to be partners with another npc."

#

Maybe thats detrimental thinking, maybe the strider should always be changing who it's giving the benefit to, but so far, staying within skirmisher kit feels like a lost of opportunity at times. You sort of want to switch back to the ranger long rifle as much as possible still

#

One thing i'll note is that soft cover on demand as a defensive system is great for a tier 1 npc, but at higher tiers, it greatly tapers off

brisk flax
#

Other peoples' feedback has presented a pretty broad use case for both kits at various times so to be honest I'm not really super concerned

#

like, I'm not trying to dismiss your feedback, but thus far there hasn't been a consistent consensus of "yeah this other kit sucks and you don't want to be using it"

smoky bluff
#

True, it's probably again, the way it was set up

brisk flax
#

the long rifle DOES do a lot of damage, it's a striker artillery unit, that's to be expected

smoky bluff
#

Strider priest does work but it was extremely awkward to pull off at times since the strider was so tied down by investiture, making it unable to fully use its skirmisher kit. It was inevitable that it felt better to keep swapping to the marksmen kit

#

I'm excited to try and see it work out with the bastion, i'm thinking it can be one hell of a fight

#

In theory, the strider with a bastion can move up to both deal with strikers on the frontline and swapping to a long rifle to snipe at artillery players when it calls for such firepower

smoky bluff
#

Another Strider Sitrep

Gauntlet
No Core Power Except Efficient
One-shot so data is flawed

Players
Combined Arms UNCLE-Smart gun Kinetic Hammer Everest [Destroyed in action, Stressed once, Rolled a 1 On their 3rd structure, Power at a Cost — Permanently slowed, Overcharged 2 times]
Ace RBJJ Kinetic Hammer Genghis [Structured once, Overcharged 4 times]
Bristle crown Total Strength Suite II Empaakai [Stressed twice, Overcharged 2 times]
Nanocomp Tachyon Lance Hecatoncheires [No Damage, Overcharged 1 times]

Ops-For
Sentinel
Scout
Ace
Hive
Elite Marine Strider, Breach Ram, Recon Kit, Siege Kit, Survival Knife
Exotic Veteran Commander Bastion, Fearless defender, Regenerator, Full repair, Near-threat denial, Military Discipline

Reinforcements
2 Bereserker
Scourer
Ace
RPV Aegis

image.png
#

With a smaller ground to play with and a big bodyguard to eat up attacks that the strider wouldn't be able to handle, the skirmisher strider with recon kit was used more times than before, although a "partner" to pair recon kit was attempted, i only got to do it once. Skirmisher Recon kit is a situational optional that should be used not just on one guy. I sort of have to use it on whoever just so happens to be close by

#

Notable things noted

  • Survival Knife is a good optional, the best combo a GM can pull off with it on the skirmisher kit was ram and knife, and since i was using recon kit, i often stayed as a skirmisker and trapped in a much more enclosed enviroment, i found myself doing that a lot often than usual, even more so thanks to elite. Forcing the very slow but tanky melee Genghis to not do anything for 2 whole rounds.

There were other ways of achieving this, the important part is that the enemy ends up prone, for my case, there was the bastion who can knock others prone for the strider and the scout with expose weakness, allowing me to swap into skirmisher kit, survival knife, free attack with the explosive carbine and knock people prone.

  • Playing a Skirmisher Strider rather than a Marksmen strider, i found myself more hesitant to use reposition since i wanted to stay in spot where i can quickly swap to the Marksmen rifle and try to snipe their artillery player, this was attempted, but i missed and the bastion was stunned so i couldn't roll. However reposition is great when shit hits the fan and you need to retreat to reinforced lines. From there i played it as a marksmen strider focusing on reinforcing the gauntlet.

  • Recon Kit, It was used but it was again situational. I would definitely say it was useful but i again suffered from lack of range by a slight margin to benefit it at times to gain a small advantage. In the case it was used, the bastion was able to moved up to a slowed Empaakai to knock it prone, before retreating back to the cover of the aegis. Maybe next time, i'm bumping the range up from 5 to 8

smoky bluff
#

From playtest, Positioning is the name of the game you are trying to play with the strider, its all positioning and opportunities

#

Playing with a dedicated defender was a real game changer, being able to play a lot more aggressively allowed for times where skrimisher kit to make full use of its movement abilities and more importantly, times to switch to marksmen and hit weaken mechs for crazy damage.

#

I should try playing with a demolisher bodyguard

indigo oasis
#

Dang I guess I didn’t need to stress playtestng the Strider before I lost the chance as much lol

indigo oasis
#

Kai, would yoj consider turning one of the Rebake Lurker’s base traits into a system to give it some system trauma fodder? I know some of the other Rebake NPCs had traits turned into systems (or in the Demolisher’s case got a new weapon) in order to aid in that, so I’m wondering if something similar could be done with the lurker.

brisk flax
#

Defensive Shroud is already a system, and it has two optionals further which are systems

#

I'm not really interested in Umbral Shift or Umbral Shroud being potentially destroyable because I'm not sure what the advantage to doing that would be

indigo oasis
twin reef
#

Does Overdrive Servos mean the Berserker can't be rammed by anyone smaller than size 3?

brisk flax
#

No, it means they can ram targets as if they themselves were Size 3

indigo oasis
#

I got some Lurker and Strider Test Data:

2nd Combat of a Mission, but all PCs had fully repaired their structure, stress, and equipment.
Control Sitrep

PCs (LL5):
Zheng (Core Power Active)
Hydra
Swallowtail
Pegasus Alt (3rd Party) (Not Too Functionally Distinct)

NPCs (Tier 2):

  • Elite Strider (Survival Knife, Spare Parts)
  • 2 Lurkers (Kinetic Transference, Empower Shroud)
  • Commander Mirage (Quick March)
  • 3rd Party Defender/Controller (PPG Anchor, helped redirect attacks from some vulnerable targets + denied some space but not much else)
    Reinforcements:
  • Hornet (deployed round 3)
  • Elite Strider (identical to first) (deployed round 4)
  • Veteran Lurker (Kinetic Transference, Absolute Darkness, Seeded Shadows) (deployed round 4)

Strider Thoughts:
I think the strider was effective, if a little difficult to use. To start on Spare Parts, I thought it was useful, though the HP restored felt like at times too much which stopped it from being used after taking some chip damage, and at others too little as it put a bandaid on losing most of its HP. I tried using it on allies but the positioning forced me to use it on myself. However, the benefits were greatly appreciated- the 5 HP did allow the Strider to tank a little extra hurt, and the accuracy on all attacks and saves gave it a bit of extra punch before kicking it.

I was finding myself mainly using the Skirmisher kit this combat despite planning to use the Marskman Kit for the combat, mostly because after the Zheng rushed down my OpFor I didn't really see another option. Reposition was invaluable in keeping the strider alive for as long as it was- and it lasted a while- because it kept using Reposition to avoid taking Hydra Drone damage + effects. It would've eaten a lot of tempest drone damage otherwise. But if the strider ever got knocked prone or immobilized in Skirmisher kit, it couldn't use Kit or Swap bonuses to get out of it and was kinda screwed- character limit will continue in next message

#

Whether or not these are intended weaknesses I won't say, but it certainly put the strider in difficult positions.

The Knife felt good to use, the slow coming in occasional clutch as did the barrage potential (sometimes I just didn't wanna swap out of a kit), but it did feel odd its to-hit modifier was greater than that of the guns.

In fact the Rifle having a +1/2/3 to hit modifier did feel a bit weird and caused me to miss a good portion of its shots, but what's more important was that I fired it in the first place. In fact, the low to-hit modifier made using the Marksman Kit bonus feel essential, and it helped land a hit one time, so if that was the intended effect good job!

It was acting as the primary damage dealer of the combat, and to that I think it was doing a good job. I liked the fact it had armor, and it certainly lasted longer than the last strider I used. I can't really say anything bad about it- my players liked it, it did good damage, its optionals felt impactful, and while it did suffer pain points they felt intentional and not too easy to exploit. That, and it felt pretty capable of surviving, with the Active Camo forcing players to do stuff like move into shroud zone to do stuff.

As for the Grenades, I will say the fact they were in the kits they were in made them discouraging to use. The Flash Grenade being in the Marksman Kit made it so I rarely used the Marksman Kit, as the Marksman Kit lacked the defensive utility of Reposition in CQB and therefore I couldn't Blind Characters to provide protection. Meanwhile, with the Smoke Bomb, it helped for a short while, but then for most of the combat the Strider had to keep moving while the players stood still for a bit, causing the Players to use the smoke bomb for strong soft cover and using it against the strider. maybe that's smart strategy, but the Skirmisher Kit being CQB disincentivized me from re-deploying the smoke bomb to remove the soft cover as I feared the same thing happening again.

#

Lurker Thoughts:
If I'm going to be honest, I think there was a strong amount of user error when I was using the Lurkers this time. Mainly because I only attacked with them once, and apart from that mainly spammed Umbral Shift and Hide. I used Kinetic Transference once, but that was it. BEcause it was a Control I wanted to end each round trying to control the objective zones and hence I left that role up to the Lurkers due to near uncontested mobility, but that ended up backfiring kinda bad. I was being too flighty and afraid when using the Lurkers, and as such they felt like they didn't live up to their potential.

However, they did do a good job repositioning to collect points or prevent point collection. Kinetic Transference was a tool I unsuccessfully (but not dissatisfyingly) used to try and drag a PC out of an objective. When it came to using tools beyond Kinetic Transference however, they fell a little short. Because the Whips pull characters toward them, the Lurkers had to either suffer overwatch or hang out outside of objectives in order to contest them, which would result in at best getting no points. Again, probably a user error thing, base lurker works like that too, but it felt noteworthy.

Empower Shroud on the two lurkers did quickly populate the map with shroud zones, and at one point I did destroy an old shroud zone to empower a new one. But I didn't feel lacking in shroud zones when I did that or that I lost one. Conversely, the lurkers had to spend actions empowering shroud zones, which was actions away from teleporting or attacking, so they felt very limited in what they could do when they empowered a zone anyway. Which is to say, I think Empower Shroud lacking recharge is fine, as a quick action for a lurker is expensive enough.

Absolute Darkness didn't come up either- I wasn't being very smart about it.

Thoughts on Seeded Shadows in the next message

#

Seeded Shadows, against a Hydra, felt near impossible to use. The fact Seeded Shadows states "outside range 10 of all hostile characters" meant that drones were included. This meant that most of the map was unavailable when it came to placing shroud zones, and therefore the trait was near useless. Perhaps Drones don't count as specifically Hostile Characters, but from my read Drones can cause the engagement condition, do count as characters, and do count as allied to the PCs for the purposes of effects like Friendly Invades, so I think my ruling is accurate.

Had there not been drones I think I would've been fine, but the abundance of drones pretty much invalidated the ability. If this is seen as a cool counterplay, then feel free to leave it as is, but I personally greatly disliked this effect. If it's agreed that that's not very fun, specifying "hostile mech characters" in Seeded Shadows seems like an appropriate change. Then again, "Veteran Lurker Reinforcement" is fairly niche, so maybe this is a non-issue.

bold crystal
#

I'm not sure Seeded Shadows is actually supposed to function on reinforcements?

indigo oasis
#

I read that over and over, I could've sworn it did

bold crystal
#

which may be why it doesn't particularly work midcombat when people are all over the map

indigo oasis
#

Shoot it does say before the first round

#

Damn, I thought it was "on deployment"

#

Okay, well, nevermind

#

That's 100% on me

bold crystal
#

(side note: the avenger's Solidarity should work when reinforcing, probably, but as worded only sort of does?)

#

(since you technically have to choose at the start of combat rather than when the avenger is deployed it doesn't technically let you choose another reinforcement. this is probably something a GM would ignore in that situation)

indigo oasis
#

In summary:

  1. striders felt gimmicky but good, apart from the grenades
  2. I feel like I misused the Lurkers but that’s on me
twin reef
#

Minor formatting nitpick: Sidereal Realignment says "You" instead of "The Ultra".

indigo oasis
#

I think reflecting on the way I used rebake Lurker, this is definitely a GM style thing than a design thing, but I did feel too afraid to let the Lurker only have a shroud zone as a defense. Invisibility + soft cover, while undeniably providing a lot of protection, idk it didn’t feel like enough. I felt constantly compelled to either hide or umbral shift somewhere else, and since priority number 1 was “claim objectives” rather than “damage PCs” it made them extremely passive in how they behaved. The fact that Shroud Zones could be deployed within range 10 almost rewarded me for this because it made Lurkers extraordinarily good at disengaging.

To reiterate, this is a personal GM mindset thing, not a critique of the rebake Lurker. It’s just something I’m not used to after the Lurker lost its resistance (a definitive positive). But I do think Lurker requires the GM to be brave and make Lurkers stand their ground. Unlike Specters, Lurkers have to choose between getting out of dodge or hiding, and they have to be spatially aware because they can’t be invisible everywhere. If they stand their ground, they’re absolutely more vulnerable than a specter would be. I think as a GM I just gotta accept that’s okay and be brave.

brisk flax
indigo oasis
#

I suppose, maybe it’s just a me thing

indigo oasis
#

I think that comment kinda came as a “hot off the heels” of that combat kinda thing where I was admittedly a little frustrated with my own performance during it, so I don’t think it was the most fully thought out thing. i do apologize for that comment.

After dwelling on it, the Flash Grenade is more powerful on the Skirmisher kit (blind to disengage/Knockback is more effective than throwing down soft cover to disengage) and the Smoke Grenade is stronger on the Marksman Kit (allows it to set up soft cover without needing to go into the other kit, and maintain some mobility with its snipers perch setup without swapping kits). But like. It’d be too true a combo; the grenades do need to be on the opposite kit to encourage swapping- otherwise Marksman with its invis trait would basically be an Artillery Lurker with little effort and Skirmisher would be incredibly annoying to actually pin down with blinding, Knockback, AND bonus movement.

#

I think it’s just a skill issue on my part lol

#

I suppose the most constructive point I can take away from that however is that the Smoke Bomb lasting indefinitely is more detrimental to the strider than beneficial IF it is under pressure. Making it not indefinite shuts down being able to throw down a grenade, swap kits, and snipe, which pretty much defeats the purpose of the smoke grenade. But if a strider is trying to meaningfully remain in CQB- as has been shown in other playtests to be difficult but still effective- throwing down a smoke grenade just ends up giving soft cover to the PCs that it has to shoot through, punishing the strider while it lacks opportunities to re-throw the smoke grenade and remove the cover.

#

I don’t think there’s really a good solution to that? At least as far as I can imagine, but the rebakes have come up with clever fixes plenty of times

#

Perhaps blast 2 is just too big a footprint? Idk.

#

If the strider’s using the Skirmisher kit to just evacuate then this isn’t a problem, but from what I can tell the rebake does intend for the Skirmisher Kit to be capable to remaining near/within, say, an objective zone for a somewhat prolonged period of time without crumpling. You can argue “don’t use the smoke bomb in the first place,” but in my case the smoke bomb was a good idea until the PCs approached, and then there just wasn’t a good new place to put it.

#

It’s hard for me personally to tell if this is a valid point to bring up considering how that’s a combat where I don’t feel confident I leaned into the intended strider playstyle

brisk flax
#

to be clear

#

I can see the argument being made in that I do see the synergistic elements of either one, but it's more that I'm not sure swapping them around would really make a major difference in terms of, like, really crystalizing anything, but I'm trying to see if there's more that I'm missing

#

on the smoke grenade: I chose blast 2 because that's what GMS smokes are, which admittedly do only last for a round, but I suppose my confusion on this point stems from the "can't just use the grenade again to disperse the first one"

indigo oasis
#

So I guess I can try and walk through the exact experience that made me thing this to sort of figure out why I felt this way (doing this both to add context + to help me better sort out my thoughts):

During a control, my strider was trying to maintain control of an objective zone. The other zones were covered by its Allies and this zone was hotly contested by the PCs so it wanted to stick around. It also already had a Smoke Grenade deployed.

It could have re-deployed the grenade to a few new positions, but that would have detracted from the action economy it had when it was desperately on the back foot, and considering it was trying to wrest control of an admittedly small zone (and notably, not failing), it couldn’t really afford to spend the actions nor had many opportune locations to place the new smoke bomb. So for about two rounds, it (and its Allies) had to keep shooting the PCs through the soft cover at difficulty to even have a chance of forcing them off the objective.

Eventually it did evacuate the zone and disengage, but around then in swapped kits. This means that until it swapped back to Skirmisher Kit and deployed another smoke grenade, the PCs basically had free soft cover in the objective zone. Swapping kits actively made the smoke grenade harder to turn off, which further turned it into a detriment.

It did re-deploy the smoke grenade before dying, in admittedly a location that no character was engaging with in the entire combat. Meaning the Strider was essentially using a quick action to remove the soft cover it deployed to no one’s benefit, purely to ensure the PC’s couldn’t have it

#

Swapping kits really exemplified the problem of the smoke grenade getting in the strider + it’s teams own way, as when it’s in the Marksman Kit, simply using the grenade again is not a readily available option for when circumstances change. That thereby makes the strider much more inflexible when it comes to using the smoke grenade (in this experience at least).

indigo oasis
#

Dwelling back on the combat, I do think there were definitely opportunities I had to redeploy the smoke grenade earlier- I was just laser focused on testing out the Survival Knife so I just. Didn’t. (Also hiding to survive in the control zone for longer).

However once I swapped kits that’s where I think feeling restricted in my ability to reposition the soft cover was somewhat justified.

steel wigeon
#

Dumbass question

where is the rebaked strider information again

or do i need to redownload the lcp on itch

indigo oasis
#

Pinned message

fathom quiver
#

Picked this up last night along with Blood Money, reading through it

fathom quiver
#

Goliath so far as been my first "he did what!?" change, barricade, aegis, and assault all look fun

brisk flax
#

The Goliath is kind of funny to me because a lot of people seem very shocked when they first seen the rebake, but imo it's not even that dramatic of an overhaul

indigo oasis
#

Like base kit alone, all that happened was removing Siege Armor and making Crush Targeting not recharge. You could argue the Drum Shotgun scaling change is also significant but... I don't

fathom quiver
#

Siege armor was the iconic thing on Goliath for me, it's a mountain of hit points you need to be close to hurt, and losing Retribution stung since it was usually the first optional I gave to them.

indigo oasis
#

And the Berserker also has retribution as an optional

fathom quiver
#

Yes, and I used both far less than goliaths

#

Berserker doesn't make sense in most opfors I've run

indigo oasis
#

The designer notes explain why the choices made were made, but if you feel strongly enough about it you can always just continue to use CRB Goliath while using rebake everything else

fathom quiver
#

So I was very confused when I saw that Kai said it was special for the berserker

indigo oasis
#

I mean it's a true combo- if a Berserker gets hit, Retribution gets ticked and then it gets a free attack with Aggression

fathom quiver
#

But I haven't had a chance to see what the template rebakes are like

fathom quiver
indigo oasis
fathom quiver
#

On the Goliath, it has the staying power to build up a full load of it

indigo oasis
#

Retribution also got changed tho- it doesn't build up anymore, it's just a flat +1d6

fathom quiver
#

And with siege armor, it has the chance to not suffer much for it

#

Ah, I hate it

#

Bar get full! Number go up!

indigo oasis
#

It's less to track imo but again, the CRB Goliath is still there

young turtle
#

The problem I had with Core Book goliath was that tbh Siege Armor was kind of a weird wrinkle since it wants to get in close itself if possible with a number of stuff it can do

#

and having a ton of HP already made it relatively tanky

#

its why I personally prefer stuff like Shock Armor from the demolisher which plays into what it wants to do already

bold crystal
#

I do think siege armor was sort of valuable for the core goliath since it had limited mobility(size 3 speed 3 no Towering Stride) and siege armor could force things to close in, but rebake having towering stride makes it much less of an issue for it to close in.

indigo oasis
#

That and higher sensors

bold crystal
#

it doesn't get higher sensors

indigo oasis
#

Did it not get bumped from 8 to 10? Hang on lemme check

#

Nope they didn’t I hallucinated that :P

young turtle
#

it doesnt get sensor 15 at tier 3

indigo oasis
#

That there we go

young turtle
#

it just sticks with sensor 10 for all tiers

#

rebake goliath also absolutely wants to get in closer now which makes sense

indigo oasis
#

imo CRB Goliath kinda ranked itself above other defenders in terms of tankiness, making it unable to be used as a regular NPC easily in a way somewhat comparable to Operators & Ronins (to a much lesser degree though). The Rebake puts the Goliath’s power budget on a level comparable to all other defenders now.

#

You can burn or AP past armor, but resistance has fewer avenues to bypass and the Goliath’s bulk came from HP more than anything, which only direct damage can really damage. That’s what made it so tanky- on top of having no shortcuts to being toppled it also had a resistance trait

#

30 25 HP is also like. A lot of HP [edit: at tier 1] . Especially with the existence of structure templates

bold crystal
#

I think mag gauntlet and coercive force are kinda standout optionals in the rebake that help make it more than A Brick That Gives You Three Difficulty

indigo oasis
#

It’s a tar pit defender

#

Almost feels like an inverse Demolisher in that sense tbh

#

Then again it also felt like an inverse Demolisher in the CRB to a certain degree

rose hamlet
# young turtle The problem I had with Core Book goliath was that tbh Siege Armor was kind of a ...

Legit, I was fine with this because it funneled folks into its “tarpit range”. Part of being a Tank (of which the Goliath is, unquestionably) is providing a damage-dealing dilemma between two shit options. Siege armor meant you could plink them for peanuts, or you could go closer for damage and risk its CQB kit

It’s a paradox in that it seems contradictory but it’s actually true/valid/synergistic

indigo oasis
#

Crush Targeting, however, technically already did that, hence why just focusing on Crush Targeting was the direction chosen for the Rebake (I presume)

brisk flax
rose hamlet
#

Yup, I think that the Crush Targeting + massive innate bulk is strong on its own tbf

indigo oasis
#

The purpose of the Goliath is to be a desirable meatbag, to put it inelegantly

brisk flax
#

I actually feel that I prefer the Goliath to be more plinkable at range mainly because the alternative is often less "oh man we need to do super dramatic tactical positioning" and more "did someone bring Paracausal Mod/FABI?"

rose hamlet
#

Yeaaaaaah….

brisk flax
#

Rewarding people for shooting the Goliath at range means, funny enough, more people will shoot the Goliath at range, which is pumping attacks into the meatbag defender

#

Re: retribution, again, I see the vision, but the roster already has a "this guy hurts more when you hurt them" NPC and I'm looking to not double up on things like traits, abilities, etc, and I feel the Berserker deserves the extra damage trait more than the guy whose schtick is "the bulky defender"

#

Also, cross classing exists

indigo oasis
#

All the other defenders (sans Sentinel but it's a different breed of defender entirely) all have reasons to disencentivize being attacked by the wrong people or in the wrong circumstances, while simultaneously protecting allies or spaces in order to put the PCs in a catch 22. The Rebake Goliath differentiates itself therefore by saying "everyone is free to attack me :) There are absolutely no caveats to this :) Ignore the pool of 25 HP :)"

brisk flax
#

The rebake didn't take that away or assume it isn't in play

bold crystal
#

it's free to attack me. I just have 25 health and 8 heatcap

brisk flax
#

is what happened

brisk flax
# bold crystal I do think siege armor was sort of valuable for the core goliath since it had li...

Also, to loop back to this, a thing about the Goliath as it existed CRB-wise is there wasn't really a lot of penalty for just fuckin ignoring it. It didn't have long range anything outside of Crush Targeting on a recharge, which means a lot of the time you could just go "okay buddy you have fun" and focus on other stuff. Not being able to hurt a guy at long range doesn't really matter as much if that guy can't do much to you unless they get close to you anyway. A guy with a short range shotgun and various grapple/punch abilities at even shorter range is a weird pairing with Siege Armor because difficult choices aren't really being forced as much, the Goliath needs to get close to you as much as you need to get close to them

#

This is why I think Siege Armor works much better as a Bombard trait because the friction is significantly more pronounced and pointed...the Bombard can blast you from a huge distance, but if you try and return the favor it has resistance, you're encouraged to close the gap while under fire

#

As I've regularly noted, my impression is that the main reason the Goliath has siege armor is less about forcing hard choices and simply because it has such a hard time navigating maps that it needs the extra layer of survivability so it can GET into "doing stuff" range

#

if those difficulties are removed (via Towering Stride, more regular and reliable abilities at a distance) then the Goliath doesn't need as much protection before it can start having an impact on the fight

bold crystal
#

yeah exactly. if it wasn't contesting a zone or something it became, as noted, 'a brick that gives you three difficulty'.

brisk flax
#

and notably, a brick that gives you three difficulty only SOMETIMES

#

I love sitreps, and I think "contesting a point" is a great way for NPCs to be, but even within the context of sitreps, there are a lot of ways you can just ignore even a big guy squatting on a point

#

and it's worse when considering the difficulty a size 3 unit has in maneuvering

#

honestly, one of the best pieces of anti-goliath tech is just like a slag cannon or TSS1

#

stick a block down in the right place and they aren't going anywhere until it's destroyed

fathom quiver
#

It just seemed weird to me because it seems like solutions to problems that never cropped up at my tables

brisk flax
#

Winter Scar features a goliath pretty prominently in the first fight, and the most notable thing about it is that the map had to be adjusted several times to ensure that it had a way to actually get to the fight without getting hung up on what I consider to be an appropriately terrain-dense map

spice aspen
#

I'm organizing a oneshot for the holidays. are there any particular wallflower rebake classes that are still in need of playtesting that would be useful like- sometime around the end of the month, or has stuff largely been finalized for layout and whatnot?

brisk flax
#

So far the breakdown is basically:
1). Avengers and Spites seem like they're in a good place
2). Lurkers got a bunch of updates, nothing transformative but a number of minor tweaks to things, so if you want to give those a spin it'd be nice
3). Strider feedback continues to be the thing I'm most interested in given the complex nature of the beast

#

If you had to pick just one, I would value Strider feedback more highly, but I'll take anything you care to give, really

spice aspen
#

good deal. and that'd still be useful even if it came like- a few weeks from now? sometime before the new year, but still definitely later in the month

indigo oasis
brisk flax
#

things are 90% solidified, but I want to make sure these latest changes don't do anything weird as well as gather some additional strider test feedback

spice aspen
#

understood!

#

perhaps I'll get extra zesty and run an ultra strider. maybe that would be too spicy though

#

in any case, I'll certainly figure something out

brisk flax
#

hey, someone's gonna make an ultra strider, might as well find out early if it sucks or not

spice aspen
#

phfffft. touche

#

just gotta think about what to shove onto it, what with striders often being pretty starved for action eco. not that the extra turns wouldn't help a lot

brisk flax
#

Could be a good candidate for more passive stuff

spice aspen
#

here's a funky question: does the ranger long rifle's unreducable damage effect apply to having its damage halved by something like realspace extrusion from the exotic template? I'm unsure if that's a reduction to damage or if the adjustment is made to the base damage being dealt

brisk flax
#

"you deal half damage as part of some self-inflicted effect" is never overcome by paracausal damage

#

it's the same thing as popping hyperdense armor and going "but I have paracausal mod on my HMG so I should still deal full damage," doesn't work that way

spice aspen
#

righty. I remembered it being something like that but it's been a few months since I've ran so I figured it couldn't hurt to ask

brisk flax
#

or to put it another way, "you deal half damage because of a thing you do yourself" isn't treated as "a reduction" in that sense

spice aspen
#

I'll figure out how to angle this bad boy one way or another. if I do make it ultra I'm currently leaning on like... I think hover movement, orbital eye, and perhaps the one that gives a free boost 1/turn. its own role will be to lean into the flexibility and create something with consistent personal output while also moonlighting as a spotter for some of its friends. I may avoid the free boost so as to encourage myself to swap to skirmisher kit instead though, we'll see

part of the supporting cast, in my early thoughts so far, would be... let's say a couple lurkers with kinetic transference and maybe absolute darkness too. the goal being to cover the map in Spooky Areas and drag PCs into them and open up sightlines for the strider, which it can easily reposition to capitalize on. maybe stagger out their deployment a bit to spread out pressure. cataphracts could do the same thing but I like the idea of getting a little esoteric with it

#

beyond that, no strong ideas. also not sure if that sounds too fucky, it's been quite some time, so it may end up looking completely different. not to ramble, pardon

marsh nest
#

I was also worried about Goliath originally, but having tested the rebake one via Lancer Tactics I can confirm you can’t just ignore this one. The fact it can give out Crush Targetting every turn means that it’s annoying if you don’t shoot it even if it’s out of shotgun range.

#

It still takes ages to die if you do shoot it.

#

It’s less significant as a thing that just sits on the point and is hard to kill, but that’s just on its own. Paired with an aegis or a bastion or something to grant it more defense it’s still amazingly hard to move, and considering it is just one normal NPC slot in the opfor, being able to almost single-handedly hold a point without support before may have been a bit much. You can always give it veteran or commander or exotic or give it back siege armour if you like, but then it will feel and sound appropriately special

#

Veteran Goliaths are especially worth mentioning if they take Self-Repair, because that’s extremely demoralising. Oppression is also pretty nice, that just spreads the annoyance around.

fathom quiver
#

I’m also surprised that most of the optional weapons have been culled because, uh, I like to have NPCs barrage

vale crescent
#

I think that's why a lot of optional weapons have been culled lmao

#

NPC barrages being capable of causing that NPC to have a major DPS spike based on optionals when they don't really key into that NPCs playstyle outside of damaging

fathom quiver
vale crescent
#

Fair

#

I can also just be wrong

#

This is the impression I've picked up over time...

fathom quiver
vale crescent
#

Yep

#

Utility and flexibility innit

young turtle
#

There's still a fair few npc optional weapons

#

but if you look at those that were removed its stuff like the other sheavy for bombard, which was really hard to use

fathom quiver
#

Also a minor note, a lot of them were sources of NPC template attacks, which does mean that those Drake traits and systems are just a touch more situational

young turtle
#

or the Seeker cloud which was neat but it makes sense to focus the Hive more into this active controller role

vale crescent
young turtle
#

Oh sorry, its a main

#

I think that's fine tho cause my main point is more that it can't use both at once really

fathom quiver
#

… are there any line attacks in the rebake?

young turtle
#

yeah if you take an optional for the operator

#

core book only has one of those as well

dapper plover
#

The Ultra Optional Miniaturized Railgun is also a Line attack
There's a couple Line save effects and the walls beyond that (Pyro's Firebreak, Aegis' Blackwall) but not attacks afaik

vale crescent
#

Line guns are kinda rare among NPCs

young turtle
#

there's probably more line attacks in the rebake than in the core book even then lol

vale crescent
#

Probably lmao

#

Wait I think it's net 0

Scourer line weapon -> base attack does line

Operator gains line attack

Ultra railgun

#

So I think the number of line attacks have increased by 2... Might be missing some

fathom quiver
#

What? Am I looking at an outdated copy that I just bought?

vale crescent
#

Doubt it

#

These are all optionals

fathom quiver
vale crescent
#

Oh I'm just wrong

#

This is from memory

fathom quiver
#

And then the railgun

#

Honestly if it was a line I’d be okay with that

vale crescent
#

Well scourer had the line laser which also had multi attack that kinda just existed and didn't key into any of its other traits

fathom quiver
#

Though ultras getting optional template weapons does not alleviate my concern that “a niche trait on the drake is even more niche now”

vale crescent
#

Not really, said niche trait still works against blast which still exists

dapper plover
#

i hear you
Im not sure Lines are the best reference point for that trait tho; I think Blast and Burst and Cone are a lot more of what tends to interact with that trait in the first place

#

bc like, only Lines in core I can think of are Scourer Pulse Laser and Sniper Deadmetal Rounds? which are both optionals

vale crescent
#

OIOOH DEAD METAL ROUNDS

#

Them!!!

#

Forgot about them

fathom quiver
young turtle
#

I think, i'd need to check, but Drake didn't lose resistance against any enemy that it wouldn't have had resistance against base

fathom quiver
#

It’s just that lines were already the rarest type of template, and it felt like they were just gone

young turtle
#

a lot of the stuff it got resistance against that weren't default stuff were optionals on some npcs

fathom quiver
young turtle
#

yes

#

I do know that

fathom quiver
#

And several NPCs lost their ability to get template weapons.

young turtle
#

I mean that any enemy attack it would have resistance against as a default (like Ace attaks) still has it be the case

fathom quiver
#

And gained one

indigo oasis
indigo oasis
fathom quiver
#

I ran it when I was modeling scourers as enemy Shermans

#

To reflect Shermans being a pile of lasers

indigo oasis
#

I do think the Drake only having resistance to attacks is a choice (imo if it were all AoE stuff that’d be a lot more fun), but I’m pretty sure it was never its claim to fame anyhow. It has 3 armor, it has Heavy Frame, etc.

And like. Yeah there were some losses in the AoE template Weapon department, but I don’t think we should be balancing all the NPCs around one frame anyway. Would it be good if we had more of those types of weapons? Yeah, it would be. But that’s a secondary priority to ensuring the NPCs perform in a focused and balanced way overall.

#

I say that and yet Sunzi exists -_-

fathom quiver
indigo oasis
#

And it’s been said before but it bears repeating- if you dislike certain choices of the rebake, the CRB NPCs and Cross Classing still exist. Mix and matching is encouraged

spice aspen
# indigo oasis Idk if core even *has* any line weapons

scourer has the pulse laser optional and sniper's got the deadmetal rounds optional, like otherdark mentioned! in CRB those are both line effects, and pulse laser is explicitly a line weapon. think that may be it though

young turtle
#

the important bit to me is those are all optionals

indigo oasis
young turtle
#

So your chance of meeting those specific optionals wasn't like, a garuantee

spice aspen
#

hmmm... fair point, yeah. they do exist but admittedly on the scourer especially it always felt kinda clunky because of Focus Down being such a central part of its kit. I suppose that's why the rebake retooled it into an entirely different effect bleh

young turtle
#

Its worth noting also that resistance + 3 armor is a pretty good combo when it does pop off (and when it does, its generally consistently against certain npcs since they tend to do that by default)

#

(rather than "did the GM pick the optionals which make your thing good specifically")

indigo oasis
fathom quiver
indigo oasis
#

That, and I swear I remember Kai emphasizing cutting down on NPC barraging as the reason for cutting those optionals instead of system trauma fodder

young turtle
#

unless its an elite i guess

indigo oasis
young turtle
#

Oh yeah

#

but specifically Pulse Laser only truly goes off if you can use it on two consecutive turns

#

sorry consecutive as in, if you get to take 2 turns across 2 rounds which you get to use it

#

not back to back

indigo oasis
#

I getcha- imma be real it didn’t even occur to me that Pulse Laser would allow the Scourer to trigger Focus Down multiple times per round

#

But yeah that’s exactly how it would work- neat!

#

Man now I wanna run a Scourer

fathom quiver
indigo oasis
#

Okay so those quote specifically I think you misinterpreted them- the system trauma part refers to all the optional weapons Kai kept around

#

The reason system trauma was brought up was to make the weapons more meaningful beyond system trauma fodder

#

Because like how useful even is CRB Machine Pistol beyond that?

fathom quiver
#

The fact it’s brought up so often makes me wonder if Kai thinks that was the only reason people took these

indigo oasis
#

In the Assault’s case it’s Not even brought up for the optional Launcher- it’s referring to the combat knife

indigo oasis
#

I can’t say it with total assurance, but I’m fairly confident that the reason those optional weapons were cut were specifically to cut down on NPC barraging

fathom quiver
#

Avoiding Barrages is only mentioned once, in the Berserker

young turtle
#

people didn't take them JUST for them to be structure fodder most times, but because they wanted them to be useful, and when they werent in play they could end up just being fodder

#

I'm glad those that did stick around make the npcs have clearer and more unique gameplans tbh

#

and stuff like Hex missiles basically relied on you being nice with them more so than other optionals for example, when optional weapons did end up being taken

fathom quiver
#

I like it when NPCs and PCs feel like they have parity, and between cutting multiattacks (which, fair) and most of the optional weapons, my initial reaction is that these are mech-shaped things that are completely different than player characters

#

In addition to the whole loss of tactical flexibility thing

indigo oasis
#

Actually, Running through the weapons that were cut, we’ve got:

  • Nail Gun (redundant with Harpoon Cannon, plus the berserker is a melee why does it have 2 ranged optionals, and with its new Grapple Optional it can ram + grapple for similar effects)
  • Repeater Cannon (a CQB weapon on a bombard. I don’t exactly get why this was useful)
  • Breacher Fletchette Shot (replaced with a comparable optional focusing on the Dual Shotguns)
  • Hive Seeker Cloud (debatable choice)
  • Hornet HEX Missiles (I used this once and I felt dirty- that much heat on an accurate AOE weapon is just too much)
  • Operator Nova Missiles (got moved to Ultra)
  • Pyro Napalm Bomb (replaced with a comparable optional, + Pyros would need to stabilize to reload but with explosive vents it kinda didn’t have stabilizing as part of its core gameplay loop)
  • Scourer Pulse Laser (replaced with a comparable optional that focused heavier on focus down, also it’s tier scaling doesn’t make sense)
young turtle
#

I do hate to sound like i'm saying "if you don't like it don't use it" but yeah this does double down on npcs being more bespoke, that's the purpose, it cant really be another thing you'd want it to be

#

Sounds like the rebakes aren't really in line with what you want out of Lancer, that's very fair, but the good news is you don't have to actually use them if you prefer the core book npcs

#

compared to say, if this was an official Lancer 2e situation, at which point you'd be forced at gunpoint to use the new rules sorry

indigo oasis
young turtle
#

I was on my way to say "compared to if this was lancer 2e which you'd have to use" and I realized mid sentence that even that isn't correct in terms of "having" to use it

fathom quiver
#

I mean I do like a lot of things, I love the new ronin and I am never going back to old grunts

young turtle
#

But yeah a pretty big part of these rebakes has been to like, solidify NPCs in their roles and give them their own seperate identity

indigo oasis
#

Yeah you don’t need to throw away the whole thing if you don’t like certain rebakes

#

You can just cherry pick the ones you wanna use

young turtle
#

That's a bit curious to me if the topic is about having parity with players, since Grunts are probably the furthest they've even been from players in how they work

#

but its also "one" npc type

#

But yeah even Grunts have been made into more bespoke individual things

fathom quiver
#

It’s just that I’m disappointed that there are a lot of huge divergences with how I play and run Lancer that is is much less useful than advertised

young turtle
#

I DID think the tagline being "this is for you Ninjaxenomorph" on the itch page was a bit odd yeah

indigo oasis
fathom quiver
#

Grunts being an exception, these are better at doing the things I was using grunts for, except I will be ignoring the no templates thing because I will die before I stop using grunts to represent easily stompable vehicles

indigo oasis
#

All the power to you- I gave my Striker Grunts vehicle and that was fun

fathom quiver
#

Also, taking the whole of Lancer mechanics, making Barrage a thing that only PCs do means that player characters are more like tanks than mechs

#

Because the MBT becomes basically the premier two-weapon NPC

#

And the vast majority of mechs the players encounter are NPCs, which means most mechs only mount one weapon

fathom quiver
#

Trying to find it

ancient forge
#

I was barraging with Rebake sentinel just last night

#

At least I was pretty sure it was the rebake

#

And technically any npc with a superheavy is barraging

restive fable
#

ye Rebake sentinels still have two weapons

fathom quiver
#

Technically yes, and I don’t think any NPC with multiple weapons in their starting kit lost that

ancient forge
#

There’s lots of pc builds which don’t barrage as well

restive fable
#

TBH I never really consider barrage capability since i can add those with Spec Op/Industrial/Pirate/Spacer

ancient forge
#

I hardly knew the meaning of the word as a Mourning cloak - the 1/round bonus damage traits made it inefficient most of the time

dire shadow
#

Most npc mechs should be doing something besides barraging imo

brisk flax
#

I think a lot of optional weapons DO exist as fodder OR they exist in weird realms of "does the Berserker need a barrage capability with a chunky cqb weapon"

marsh nest
#

You can still get extra weapons onto pretty much any NPC by picking one of the templates with a weapon, which is... quite a lot of them? The Rebake NPCs are quite solidly more focussed at the role they're supposed to be filling and nothing else, and then you can mix and match them and add bits if you want to, instead of ending up with weird hybrids even without using any 'additional' cross class or template optionals? This is my opinion on them, anyway. Just slap some more optional weapons on them anyway, if you want them!

brisk flax
#

I also frankly am not really clear why certain NPCs have certain optional weapons to begin with and so assuming "this is to defray system trauma" is frankly a more generous assessment than "this was done because of vibes"

#

Berserker optional weapons at least make sense in the context of what the Berserker does, they're weapons that bring someone closer to it or keep them from running, but why does the specter have a machine pistol?

#

Why does the scourer have a secondary weapon?

#

You know what I most often see those being discussed in the context of? Cross classing them onto other NPCs

fathom quiver
brisk flax
#

Okay cool I don't care for or care about that

#

That goes back to the top down "my goal with this project is, among other things, to bring the NPCs into focus"

#

I'm not interested in giving the scourer weird barrage low damage stuff any more than I'm interested in it having a cone 5 jammed

fathom quiver
#

It makes the Scourer not just a danger to a single target, but it could start raking the battlefield with secondary weapons

indigo oasis
brisk flax
#

Like fundamentally straight up, this is a factor I have never cared about going back to D&D 4E when NPCs were even more distinct than PCs in a number of respects

ancient forge
#

The system has always had tools for heavily customizing npcs - I think it makes sense for the baseline and optionals (as the most immediately presented tools for building an npc) to have more focus and serve as a sort of use guide, with less potential for stumbling into a build that makes it easy to underutilize it or undermine its identity

brisk flax
#

If you want barraging, there are still options to do so, you can cross class, or you can make an ultra, but at the end of the day I simply do not care about "what if I wanted to make a specter who occasionally also plinks at people with a machine pistol on top of doing 30 damage to someone"

ancient forge
#

You can still do that between templates and stuff but it becomes a much more deliberate choice where ideally you’re thinking about how those changes interact with the baseline
(This is continuing off of my previous message)

brisk flax
#

Like I'm not sure how much I'm going to need to reiterate "this stuff comes in large part from personal taste or experience" but a lot of stuff that got cut or remixed is stuff that I personally have balked at or never been interested in while also trying to decide if I'm missing some crucial element of the design that might tie it into the whole, and I say this without shade to tom in the slightest, but I don't think all of these things were a humming clockwork engine of tightly integrated parts

marsh nest
#

If you want your specific mech that you're representing to do other stuff, nothing is stopping you, but should it be part of the "Scourer" pattern template, something all scourers might be able to do? (something the theoretical apex all-optionals ur-Scourerer would always have?)
You can present the mech as "It looks like it fits the Scourer template, almost, but there's an multi-kinetic mount on a shoulder mount as well, that's pretty rare, it must be unusual.", and hope the players scan it, perhaps.

restive fable
#

I think I prefer making NPCs do non-barrage things since those are usually more interesting/tactical to use

marsh nest
#

(Pulse Laser in corebook specifically also is a power outlier... it's just flat out BETTER than Thermal Lance at T2 and above, right? It does more total damage to SO MANY more targets with a hefty +4 flat bonus... I prefer the "varying the main gun" style of the rebake, and it still is a solid optional for not just focussing on one target)

restive fable
#

I gotta look at that thing again

marsh nest
#

It's a (T2-3 multiattack) LINE 10 damage 4 main weapon with no self-heat unlike the Heavy thermal lance in the base kit

restive fable
#

It can't focus down and that's significant

#

it stops multi scaling at T3 apparently, goes up to 2 max

brisk flax
ancient forge
#

There is also that. When my players are utilizing the cheese grater that is celestial ordering + iskander core, I’m more likely to disrupt that with non-damaging attacks (like impale systems) than barrages

restive fable
#

What the hell is my Berserker doing dual wielding guns anyway

ancient forge
#

Does more to present them with a problem to overcome than just “here’s more damage”

brisk flax
#

Anyway this came up before a while back where someone noted that they didn't care for the rebake's emphasis on "self contained" upgrades, things like the Scourer having optionals that specifically reference or alter the Scourer's own abilities, as they preferred having more independent components which they could use like building blocks to make custom NPCs, like flash lens, pulse laser as a weapon, etc, and what I told them is what I still feel which is that fundamentally I want NPCs to not be built along "containers of parts" lines

ancient forge
#

If I’m just doing more attacks they’re using celestial reordering either way

fathom quiver
#

When I had an NPC with an optional weapon (usually operator, hive, or scourer) I was usually using the second attack for utility, either attacking a secondary target or splashing damage onto a drone or deployable. NPCs with multiple built-in weapons usually operated the same way the rebake assumes, though

brisk flax
#

With respect, I don't really view "attacking additional targets" to be "utility" in the way I'm typically looking at it

indigo oasis
#

I will also say: Invade, Ram, and Grapple still exist- as does Lock On. All enemies, technically speaking, have the ability to split fire because of that.

brisk flax
#

and also, tbh, as much as some people might personally enforce "well I wouldn't use this to just bully one target extra hard," the fact that there's nothing actually stopping anyone who snags a second weapon from doing so means that I think every such "grab a second" weapon needs to be examined in that context unless it's specifically something that says "you can't do this"

#

At any rate, it is what it is, if you're unsatisfied with what the rebake does here, my advice is to skip it or do something else

fathom quiver
#

Oh Invade is definitely my most common second action. I’ve had multiple ronins roll lucky and end up stressing someone after missing them with the sword

brisk flax
# 
clarified that this is not an official first-party Lancer supple-
ment. Lancer: NPCs Rebaked is a third-party supplement
based entirely on my own personal experiences and
ideas regarding Lancer's NPC design, and it should not
be considered official material or a secret "Lancer 1.5
edition" or anything along those lines.

Throughout this supplement, I will offer my personal
thoughts on the various components, both in order to
set them down on paper for my own satisfaction as well
as explaining to you, the reader and prospective GM,
what I've decided to change and why, in the hopes that
it makes it easier to discern what exactly has changed
and more transparent in terms of things like tactics and
mechanics. Maybe you'll agree with these decisions and
maybe you won't, but the important thing is that you have
a clear picture of things so you can come to your own
informed conclusions.```
fathom quiver
# brisk flax And sorry but I never really advertised this as being universally useful and 100...

Which is in the pdf, rather than the itch.io page. I got it because I agree that a bunch of stuff with NPCs is wonky. I much prefer the grunts therein, the ultra template looks like a lot more fun to use, and several NPCs which I don’t use very often because I find them clunky, like the barricade and breacher, or that I think can be player unfriendly, like the sniper and scout, I like a lot! I think other reworks are fun, even if it’s a lateral move, like ronin or assault. My complaints here are for my concerns or the stuff I’m bouncing off of in this paid product. I know I can always mix up my NPCs, and cross-class, but that adds overhead that multiple times you state you’re trying to avoid.

brisk flax
fathom quiver
#

I’m not asking for a refund, I don’t want to nickel and dime the stuff I like, lol

brisk flax
#

I'm not particularly fussed by the $16.99, just that you have brought up "well I'm bouncing off this thing I paid for" several times and I don't know how else to take that but you being dissatisfied and slightly hoodwinked by a purchase

#

also, not to cast blame here, but there are drafts in the pins in this channel that are free for anyone to read

#

it's unfortunate if nobody directed you here to those

fathom quiver
#

The only time I asked for a Lancer related refund when I was literally not getting the thing I paid for

#

And I’m not going to change that because I was unsatisfied with parts of a product

brisk flax
#

"I want to avoid overhead" is also a thing I like, yes, but if someone's take on a thing is "I don't like how this is" then I don't really know what else to suggest in that context

fathom quiver
#

I may be overreacting and my concerns don’t pan out in actual play

#

It probably still has a better value-per-page I actually use then a lot of other RPG stuff

brisk flax
#

I mean, how you like running NPCs is how you like running them, that isn't "wrong" or whatever, but I am going to note here for the record looping back to what feels like the start of this conversational tangent, it's still very easily with zero cross-classing to make NPCs that can barrage, I just want secondary weapons to be more thoughtfully applied to the NPC's kit, which is why things like the Assault's grenade launcher have added functionality which ties into that (knockback to move people out of cover) or why weapons that already did this were kept (the Harpoon Cannon, the Ace's missile swarm, etc)

fathom quiver
#

Including Lancer stuff, I just bounce straight off of SSMR prose, no matter how many times I’ve tried to read through it

brisk flax
#

There were several instances where I felt this was less clear, less satisfying, or frankly sometimes simply just "ladle a bunch of damage/heat onto people extra" which isn't a thing I'm a big fan of without much better context, so those got cut. These are things like Pulse Laser, HEX Missiles, etc. "Controller = lots of heat" is one of those things that A). I kind of go "ehhhhhhhh, not REALLY" at, and B). is a thing I think fits the Witch much better than the Hornet, who largely seems to focus on other matters

#

and yes I do think system trauma protection is a thing a lot of more experience lancer GMs have to consider after a while because "your big NPC loses their only weapon and ends up doing mostly fuck-all" is like a lancer GM right of passage, and one of the easiest ways to deal with that which isn't rewriting structure tables is "I'll just give my demolisher a knife and call it a day"

#

You see this on the PC end too in a lot of ways, it's why Armament Redundancy exists. Nobody ACTUALLY wants to engage in system trauma because it's not particularly fun or interesting, either you have a bunch of guns and don't really care because you can sacrifice one of the lesser used ones or you pay a 1 SP "ignore this mechanic" tax

restive fable
#

after I went from 0 heat to exposed from a hornet using two quick actions I decided hex missiles were a little bit nonsensical pain

brisk flax
#

like it's not as though I've never used any of this stuff myself or given someone the nudge to use it, but I think it's notable that hex missiles usually come out in a context of, like, "do you want to be mean to your players? here's how"

fathom quiver
#

I largely disagree with system trauma at least as a player; it’s a negative effect, but it’s always felt like a fair game thing to inflict. Armament redundancy buys you some safety, but I’ve usually used it to buy some extra protection on mechs that are extra vulnerable to it.

#

Though on hacker everests prior to the Chomolungma, or when you want to focus on Main weapons, I’ve remembered packing the disposable AMR…

brisk flax
#

I'm not really talking about whether it's fair to inflict or not, I'm talking about it solely from a perspective of "does this make the game more interesting?" and my stance is "no not really"

#

the fantasy of system trauma is "your mech is damaged and parts are broken! you have to reroute power to other systems and think on your feet!"

#

the practical outcome of it is largely either
1). this NPC is now useless, lol, lmao
2). a PC shrugs, disposes of one of three weapons, and continues on largely as they have
3). a PC built around a single centralizing weapon pays 1 SP to take Armament Redundancy

#

I see the fantasy, I don't think the actual practical implementation thereof adds a lot to the game

#

I've talked about this extensively elsewhere even prior to the rebake, that I am personally of the opinion that you could replace System Trauma with "the PC loses 1 repair" and it would contribute to the attrition factor IF you decided it was a necessary element of that, or otherwise I think you could ditch it outright and most lancer groups wouldn't miss it or care

fathom quiver
#

What system can I afford to lose, etc

restive fable
#

tbh it usually becomes "whatever, blow off the personalizations" a lot

minor tundra
#

I feel it interferes with how I like to build, which is honing down everything to have a finely ticking precise machine - and which is, itself, Kai’s design philosophy here. Hence the adjusted structure tables as well

brisk flax
fathom quiver
brisk flax
#

there's a world where system trauma is a more interesting mechanic and having to route power and patch systems and etc is more of an engaging gameplay experience, but I don't think that lancer's version is that thing

fathom quiver
#

It’s also why I don’t mind the alternate structure tables, because system trauma is mostly engaged with during rests, which is a PC mechanic. NPCs don’t get that, so system trauma is a lot more impactful on the NPCs lifespan, ie during i.e. the combat it’s deployed in.

#

Despite my general preference for NPCs that feel to the players like other mechs

marsh nest
#

NPCs already felt totally distinct. One of the first things my first group of players complained about was that the NPC stats were so totally disjoint to theirs at LL0.

#

(For a start, an assault hit them with 6 unrolled damage, and they were struggling to roll 6 damage, let alone guarantee it.)

#

I would also like an option where there is an option to build an NPC like it was a PC, but it's quite possible that makes for a worse game overall. I have considered just running PC mechs as NPCs, but they're tuned so differently it probably wouldn't flow well.

#

I agree you can make it -look- like they're the same with careful NPC stats though, and generally, I've found the Rebake actually helps with that if you apply things towards that goal. (It takes out quite a lot of "but I could never even think of doing that" like weapons that attack two or three times for a single quick action)

brisk flax
#

It also sort of comes back to "what does an NPC that 'feels like' a PC mech mean?" in these contexts, because lots of PC mechs also aren't barraging, plus NPC actions already have some pretty massive disparities to begin with (stabilize, invade, lack of things like bolster, vastly less customization in general, core actives, etc)

#

I'm of the mind that lancer's NPCs are fundamentally asymmetrical in numerous respects, including those that don't become readily apparent until you start digging down even deeper into the breadth of buildcraft available to PCs that NPCs don't get comparable access to

#

and on the gripping hand, "I want an NPC that evokes a PC mech" exists in the Ultra template

fathom quiver
#

Veteran (usually plus something else) was a peer, and Ultra was a monstrous threat beyond the players that they could only hope to take on as a team

brisk flax
#

I'm not sure that I feel that Ultras are quite that monstrous in practice unless you're making some crazy ultra ronin blender, and even then it's more just "yeah we have to damage race this guy"

marsh nest
#

A template that was Ultra-But-With-Only-One-Activation might be interesting. I usually went with Veteran Commander and just gave them extra optionals if I was aiming for that.

#

Of course, that only really works when you're aiming for a power team of opponents

#

if there's just one ultra, they need/want the extra activations.

brisk flax
#

I don't think I can accurately count how many ultra fights people have undertaken that ended anticlimactically because they assumed ultras were a bigger raid-bossier threat than they are

marsh nest
#

yeah, if there's only one of them they're... about a player and a half worth ^_^

brisk flax
#

which is why "don't have ultras hold up a fight by themselves" is the encounter planning advice number one people give in regards to them

marsh nest
#

(Neither players nor NPCs usually get to -use- their 4th bar of structure, it's pretty lucky if they do, and it's not going to be a solid 100% combat performance bar even if they do)

indigo oasis
fathom quiver
#

Also his main gimmick directly does not translate, because he wanted to hit as many people at as possible in one turn to get as many echo edge marks as he could

minor tundra
#

Time to rush to see if I can lock in....

smoky bluff
#

Mr strider is santa claus and his bag of kits has just the present for you

minor tundra
#

damn I dont have two R emotes

spice aspen
#

not quite santa, but I did come up with KillRadius Model P (uniform-sierra)

minor tundra
#

Bit attempted™