LucasC
First Post
This post is feedback from two weeks of gameplay. If you're interested in the story the players are engaged in you can read the play reports here.
General Information
Combat
We used the new, lower derived defenses. No one liked it. Basically everything swung the opposite of what it had been. They could hit with almost every attack.
Some key effects of the change:
My players haven’t really enjoyed the feel of either of the two core systems presented but they did prefer the prior version to the latest.
I asked the guys to post some feedback on our own message boards, here’s a few direct quotes (replaced people’s names w/their characters):
Psionics
Miscellany
General Information
- 7 pcs
- 2 personal combat encounters
- The first vs. a single XP 25 monster and the second vs. a pair of XP 32 monsters.
- The PCs were not challenged by either battle but I’m slowly moving into these fights as I have no idea what they can actually handle yet.
- 1 spaceship encounter
- Total XP earned: 27 each
Combat
We used the new, lower derived defenses. No one liked it. Basically everything swung the opposite of what it had been. They could hit with almost every attack.
Some key effects of the change:
- Nobody bothered to use any of the positional effects to get bonus attack dice
- Players without a strong SOAK (or w/out any SOAK) were incented to try and find cover as they now felt very vulnerable
My players haven’t really enjoyed the feel of either of the two core systems presented but they did prefer the prior version to the latest.
I asked the guys to post some feedback on our own message boards, here’s a few direct quotes (replaced people’s names w/their characters):
- [Morrus] needs to decide if it’s a game where hitting and missing is more in line with reality (what he had) or follows a lot of other games where hitting/missing is not truly representative of what actually happens but rather a means to enjoy combat.
- I think there's a lot of stuff that needs to be done to fix combat, from modified soak to diverse weapons to working out the math for defenses.
- I think the reason that the defenses are such a huge issue comes back to D6s. Each time you add a rank in a skill you get an effective +3.5 to hit. It’s hard to make defenses account for such a huge range. [J5] was rolling something like 8d6, for an average roll of 28, while those of us without military training were rolling between 3 and 5d6, for an average roll of 10.5 - 17.5. Even with old defenses [J5] would hit almost every time, plus he had abilities that let him do extra damage. Something else needs to be done; either a static modifier instead of extra dice; a standard to-hit progression with marksman giving a less significant bonus; or something to make combat skills less enticing while not also trivializing defense. Note that if I had taken all psychic skills and loaded up Telepathy I could stun people with the same sort of efficiency as [J5] can blast them; though I'd take damage for it. The one difference with the psychic powers is that there is a diverse set of skills necessary if you want to use different powers, though it would be easy enough to make a "superhero" with a signature power that focuses on a single school of psionics.
Psionics
- Need to consider the cost of some psionic powers – the damage is precluding people from using certain powers – possibly lower damage or even allow some powers to be used free
- for example if you use Telepathy you take 3 damage. This is just to send a short message. A telepathic character would be expected to do this constantly but in reality they can only do it a few times before they fall unconscious.
- Any power that attacks a defense other than AGI or WIL is going to be problematic as it circumvents the games in-built defense system. An easy fix for this is probably to substitute the attacked ability on the defense table (so, if a power attacks END, check the defense table for what your derived END would be)
- Inflict pain has some conflicting rules
- On a successful PSI vs. MENTAL DEFENSE attack, the target falls prone, and is stunned for 2 turns, taking a -2 die roll penalty to all actions and unable to move from his current location. (page 205)
- Stunned: no actions are allowed. (page 109)
- Does mind probe work on an unconscious target?
- Do you have to speak a common language for mind probe to be effective?
Miscellany
- Too many rivals and not enough contacts are being generated during character creation – what should be a positive is more often a negative.
- As an aside, when I was generating character histories I liked this concept of contacts too much so I gave everyone at least one meaningful contact.
- Players feel like starting skills are not diverse enough (I think someone else mentioned this and I argued against them earlier!)
- One suggestion is to look at giving two skill choices at each career, one combat skill and one non-combat skill
- Another quote from our internal boards: I think careers/backgrounds should either automatically grant a "vital" skill like those that give bonuses to speed, initiative, to-hit/damage, psychic to-hit, etc. or give a limited choice of them in addition to a choice of more flavorful, limited use skills like engineering, first aid, computer use, etc. Some non-combat type skills should probably be open to all careers.
- One suggestion is to look at giving two skill choices at each career, one combat skill and one non-combat skill
- Players feel like combat skills, particularly marksman, are essential choices when the skill shows up in a list of options
- Players feel like SOAK should overlap not stack (the ogron has a SOAK of 15)
- Armor needs more diversity – I think you should consider limiting damage to a discreet list of types and assigning every armor the type of damage it SOAKS
- As it is, the SOAK rules are producing odd results. For example, Kevlar armor seems to protect against sonic damage.
