Playtest Feedback (1/6)

There were 8 players in this game. We are using the August playtest doc with the following exceptions:

• Dice Pools are limited to # of Career levels (in our case 6)
• Defense is calculated as (AGI dice + END dice) *3 or (WIL dice + INT dice) *3

Given the changes that have been made since our last regular run, everyone recreated their characters. Our play session consisted of a single ship encounter that involved 2 PC ships and 8 enemy ships.

Encounter Description
The PCs were attempting to escape Earth. They were flying the Carter and tailed by a battleship and 7 small fighters. It was not a shooting encounter, as the PCs were completely outclassed. The objective was escape, but to escape required (1) an FTL course be plotted and (2) the PCs had to get out of the asteroid belt between them and open space.

Here's the battlemap.


I used Countdown pools for almost all the mechanics.

I identified 4 main functions on the ship and setup some rules for each.

Navigation
To escape S.E.A., the PCs must execute a dangerous in-system FTL jump. Plotting this course will take both precision work and time.

• Form a slow countdown pool equal to (10 minus the navigators ranks in Navigation).

Every round, the navigator can make a LOG [navigation] check. On a result of 13 or higher, the countdown pool is treated as medium countdown for that round. On a result of 16 or higher, the countdown pool is treated as a fast countdown for that round.


Piloting
A S.E.A. Planetary Defender will attempt to snare the PCs ship in a tractor beam.

• Form a fast countdown pool equal to (ship speed dice + pilots LOG dice and piloting skill dice).

Every round, the pilot can attempt a LOG or AGI [piloting] check. On a result of 13-15 the countdown pool is treated as a Medium pool this turn, and on a result of 16 or higher, it is treated as a slow pool this turn.


Events

• Rds 1-2: During this time, the PCs will flying through heavy planetary traffic. The pilot can use evasive maneuvers to attempt a Challenging [13] piloting check to add 1 die to the pool, as he bobs in and out of oncoming traffic.
• Rd 4: Two large, slow-moving S.E.A. destroyers enter firing range, each shooting at the PCs ship (6d6 attack; 6d6 damage). The pilot can use evasive maneuvers to try and avoid these blasts.
• Rd 6-10: The PCs move into the Junk Belt. Moving at high speeds through the Junk Belt is very dangerous. Every round the pilot must succeed at a Difficult [16] piloting check to avoid a collision that causes 5-30 (5d6) damage.

Shield Tech
The planetary defender and numerous smaller starships will attempt to cripple the PC ship with carefully placed blasts.

• Form a slow countdown pool equal to: (ship's shield SOAK value + shield technicians ranks in shield operations).

Every round, each attacker makes an attack against the PC ship. On a successful hit, they roll their damage dice with any 6's being deducted from the shields countdown pool.


Each time the shields lose power, the PC ship takes damage equal to the number of dice the attacker rolled (so, if the attacker rolls 3 dice for damage, and 2 of them came up 6s, the PC vessel takes 6 damage). This damage ignores shield SOAK.


The shield technician can attempt a Challenging [13] LOG [shield operations] check to replenish the deflector shield pool by 1 die. Each benchmark beyond Challenging adds another die to the pool.


Gunners
The PC vessel will be dogged by numerous small starfighters. Place 2 such ships on the board for each PC able to man a gun or piloting a starfighter. They use their dogfighter exploit to latch on to the tail of the PC vessel, but in any given round they will pass through all of the firing arcs of the PC vessel.

Countdown Feedback

As you can see, there were lots of countdown pools. I really like the concept of countdowns, but continue to find them too unreliable for my tastes in actual play. Slow countdowns pretty much last forever, and fast countdowns are gone in the blink of an eye. The medium pool may end up being the one I'm most comfortable with.

Here's what happened in gameplay -

• The Navigator used his skills to keep the Navigation countdown a fast countdown and it was depleted in 2 or 3 rounds. So as to not end the entire encounter before it even began, I added a secondary requirement that the PCs be beyond the "Junk Belt" to initiate the FTL jump.
• The Pilot started doing the same thing the Navigator did, but as I created several complications for the pilot to deal with (see events under Piloting above), he quickly abandoned that, let the pool run on its own, and focused on keeping the ship alive. In one round his fast countdown pool went from 8 or 9 to 2. That's the sort of swing I have a hard time planning around.
• I liked the 'feel' of having shields operate with a countdown rather than a static number. I've done several of these types of encounters, and this is the first one that could continue for numerous rounds without the PCs being obliterated by a superior foe almost immediately. Next time I'll probably use a medium countdown.

Dice Pool Limit Feedback

The new dice pool limitations are awesome. Last night was one of the first times I have felt like I could predictably structure encounters and difficulty checks. My PCs are rolling 6d6 at maximum (having 6 career ranks). Speaking generally, they are each good at shooting and something else (rolling 6d6), OK with a few things (rolling 4d6), and have a bunch of stuff they suck at (rolling 2-3d6).

I did notice they hit the cap pretty quick. They tend towards 3d6 from their stat, 2d6 from skills, and 1d6 from something else (equipment, HQ gear, exploits, career attributes, positioning, etc.).

The things I really liked are:

1. I can safely assume a 6d6 roll against an important task and set DCs appropriately
2. The players were inclined to min/max less as they gain no benefit from exceeding 6d6 dice pools

The question came up regarding dice pool limits and exchange exploits, specifically whether they could spend the exchange dice and still roll 6d6 for attacking (if they had enough dice to spend and still roll 6). I told them they could not do that, and that the 6-dice limit was where they started with the exchange exploits.

A second question that came up was whether the limit applied to damage dice. I told them it did not (not that any of them had more than 6d6 on their damage rolls).

Other Feedback & Observations

• Luck continues to be rarely used by my group and I almost always have to remind them to use it. Maybe this is just my group.
• The player of the Android character was grumbling about "wasting" points from careers that give WIL.
• During character creation, there was a lot of complaining about skill prerequisites and access to those skills in careers and prerequisites in general (for instance, Sniper now requires Scout, Scout requires Military Academy). In general, they are looking for more choices.
• 2 of the 3 players that were playing a psionic character took advantage of recreating their character to ditch the psionic option. The 3rd player abandoned psionics as an attack option and went full Biopsychic to be the groups healer.
• Looking at Defense scores, I'm not convinced the latest method is the answer.
  • Here's the scores of my group: 14-15-16-24-24-32. The fellow w/32 is never going to get shot, the 24's will rarely. The 14-15-16 scores look like they're in a good place.

That dice pool limit definitely feels to me like the last piece of the puzzle. We have a couple more months of playtesting, but I'm optimistic we have it now. Getting that right has been the biggest hurdle in this whole process, and it's changed so much over the last year. You, in particular, have been a significant influence in that. Thank you!

For the countdown speeds, I wonder if more guidance on which is appropriate for which situation will help? A slow countdown can last a long time; I think of it more as for long illnesses/diseases and the like (where each roll is a day) rather than anything that would get used in one encounter. I agree the fast ones might be a bit too fast to be of much use.

I think switching it between different speeds based on LOG checks may make the whole thing a little more awkward than needed? I've never tried that, so you'll have a better idea than me, but it reads a little fiddly. Checks to add dice work great.

That's an interesting approach with the shields. It sounds fun. I might play with that concept a bit.

The question came up regarding dice pool limits and exchange exploits, specifically whether they could spend the exchange dice and still roll 6d6 for attacking (if they had enough dice to spend and still roll 6). I told them they could not do that, and that the 6-dice limit was where they started with the exchange exploits.

A second question that came up was whether the limit applied to damage dice. I told them it did not (not that any of them had more than 6d6 on their damage rolls).

Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?404118-Playtest-Feedback-(1-6)#ixzz3OEYZmzwW

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Correct on both. Note also (bearing in mind that we're just testing this, so it's not set in stone) as written the limit can be exceeded with aiming, positioning, etc.

My big takeaways from your report:

- The LUCK thing bothers me. It's feedback I've had elsewhere; people just don't use it. I need to figure this out soon, or scrap LUCK altogether. I'd rather not scrap it, as - like action points, hero points, inspirations, and the like in D&D - I feel player empowerment mechanics like this are a useful tool which helps allow them to steer the narrative (in the form of having influence over a dice roll) at the right time. Added to that clerics in O.L.D. using it and calling it FAITH.

- Psionics. So little tested still, and so little time left. Darnit. General feedback hasn't been great on psionics, and I'm considering a major rethink.

- DEFENSE. That 32 is a problem, yeah. That's way beyond any score that I considered happening. So he has a total of 10-11 dice in AGI and END, or about 5 dice in each? 5 dice is an attribute of 15, though, so that would mean he has two attributes at 15. Am I missing a large loophole in the DEFENSE calculation? Or are there other modifiers I've managed to completely overlook? This one confuses me a bit, but hopefully some more info might pinpoint where it's going wrong.

Incidentally, does this phrasing work for you?

[h=4]Maximum Dice Pool[/h]
The size of your basic dice pool is limited by the number of tradition grades you have – in other words, you cannot have a basic dice pool larger than the total number of tradition grades you have taken. If you have five tradition grades, your maximum basic dice pool size is 5d6.

This applies to the basic dice pool (attribute + skill + equipment) but die bonuses can be added on top. Die bonuses include tactics (aiming, feinting, higher ground, crossfires, etc.), spells, and LUCK dice.

Basic Dice Pool. The basic dice pool is the initial pool formed by attribute + skill + equipment. It does not include bonus LUCK dice, die bonuses or penalties, situational modifiers, or exploit exchanges. All of these things are applied to the basic dice pool after it has been formed within its maximum range.

Yep.

Morrus said:

- DEFENSE. That 32 is a problem, yeah. That's way beyond any score that I considered happening. So he has a total of 10-11 dice in AGI and END, or about 5 dice in each? 5 dice is an attribute of 15, though, so that would mean he has two attributes at 15. Am I missing a large loophole in the DEFENSE calculation? Or are there other modifiers I've managed to completely overlook? This one confuses me a bit, but hopefully some more info might pinpoint where it's going wrong.

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Here's how the higher numbers were arrived at:

AGI 3d6 + END 2d6 + ACROBATICS 1d6 + PERCEPTION 2d6 + HARDY 1d6 = 9d6 * 3 = 27
+5 star knight DEFENSE bonus
= 32

The 24s it went like this:

AGI 4d6 + END 3d6 + ACROBATICS 1d6 = 8d6 * 3
= 24


AGI 2d6 + END 4d6 = 6d6 * 3 = 18
-2 size large = 16
+8 tower shield
= 24

LucasC said:

Here's how the higher numbers were arrived at:

AGI 3d6 + END 2d6 + ACROBATICS 1d6 + PERCEPTION 2d6 + HARDY 1d6 = 9d6 * 3 = 27
+5 star knight DEFENSE bonus
= 32

The 24s it went like this:

AGI 4d6 + END 3d6 + ACROBATICS 1d6 = 8d6 * 3
= 24


AGI 2d6 + END 4d6 = 6d6 * 3 = 18
-2 size large = 16
+8 tower shield
= 24

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Ah, OK, I see the first misunderstanding. You only multiply the attribute dice, not all the bonuses. There's a bit of legacy reference to skills and bonuses still in there I clearly need to clarify! That first guy should be 24, the second guy should be 22, and the third looks right.

I guess that's what happens when I post new playtest rules in the form of a forum post rather than a fully explained playtest document!

The 24 is still pretty high; that +5 Star Knight bonus is significant. I might look at that more closely. I was thinking of making it a defensive stance - i.e. the Star Knight can stand there defensively and get the +5, but attacking removes it.

The thing I think will cause me heartache is the spread.

If I put in a critter with a fair shot at hitting the half of the party with 22-24 DEFENSE, the other half, who float in the 14-16 range, are going to be sure hits. The reverse is also true, a critter that has only a decent shot at a 15 will pretty much never seriously threaten the 24s.

LucasC said:

The thing I think will cause me heartache is the spread.

If I put in a critter with a fair shot at hitting the half of the party with 22-24 DEFENSE, the other half, who float in the 14-16 range, are going to be sure hits. The reverse is also true, a critter that has only a decent shot at a 15 will pretty much never seriously threaten the 24s.

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I think that's OK. 24's a little higher than I'd like, and I'll look at that, but we need to be wary of averaging everybody so much that all characters feel the same as each other. Someone with a low DEFENSE maybe needs some extra armor to compensate and SOAK up some of the damage he's taking, and stay in cover a bit more.

Off the top of my head, I would start with the premise of who you want a critter to be a threat to, and pitching it at that, rather than critters who you want to only hit the weakest DEFENSE characters some of the time. A 24 needs 6d6 on average, and a 15 needs 4d6, so perhaps use things in the region of 5d6? Or 4d6 and have them use aim on harder targets. 5d6 gives them a an average roll of 18ish and a max roll of 30.

I'll see how it works out next week. This week was all space action, next week they're exploring something akin to a dungeon.

I'm thinking the 'one skill at a time' rule needs to cover the derived stats as well as attribute checks. You can rely on dodging, or being tough, but not both simultaneously.