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Author Topic: Power & Pulse: A good day to plan victory  (Read 26433 times)

Lenglon

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Re: Power & Pulse: Harm from the Machine / That Happened
« Reply #90 on: May 20, 2018, 09:32:38 pm »

not sure where Mages being OP was ever a thing, is this a thing from IRC or something? I mean, I don't know anything about test games, but the two live games I've been in have both been lopsided in favor of the mechs. and since apparently my character's best survival tools are bypassed (am an awareness spec, yet was ambushed by giant metal machines that are standing out in the open in the middle of a desert, go invis, am still seen and shot at, use blink, still spend entire turn going from A to B) and mechs have a massively better operational uptime than mages, since they don't automatically shut down every fourth turn, the only tool I can see mages having that might help level things is the ability to Push. yet thus far Pushing has actually been highly self-harmful.

I can see mages becoming a LOT more powerful if we could do any kind of battlefield shaping or scouting. or if the mechs had any incentive to not just open fire upon everyone they see. but as long as things are basically arenas, mages are going to get clobbered.
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syvarris

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Re: Power & Pulse: Harm from the Machine / That Happened
« Reply #91 on: May 20, 2018, 10:03:43 pm »

is this a thing from IRC or something? I mean, I don't know anything about test games

Egan first ran this game in IRC, using basically the same system as the first iteration of P&P.  I believe there were five games total--the two good ones are spoilered below, because I think they're decent reads.  The other three were Shifter!syv vs Battlegear!MJ, where I just refused to engage and continually ran and hid so that the mech would run out of power (I ended up dying in a fire anyway); Weaponmaster!syv vs Hardsuit!Piecewise (?), during which I died in the first round because I rolled terribly; and Titan!syv vs Juggernaut!Piecewise, which was three rounds of "attack the other person", and resulted in my death, again due to inferior rolls.  None of those three were very interesting, but were good tests all the same.

Bolded lines are private chat with Egan.  Green is syv, Blue is Dev, Red is MJ.


Egan_BW

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Re: Power & Pulse: Harm from the Machine / That Happened
« Reply #92 on: May 20, 2018, 10:18:08 pm »

You know, from that data it would be reasonable to conclude that Mechs are pretty powerful. Guess I just need to never listen to Dev about balance things.
I guess he might overestimate the ability of clever play with powers to negate RNG? He should probably know better, because that certainly didn't seem to help him when Alida fought that wire monster.
Not that that play was particularly clever IMO. Hmm.

Leng's post here looks pretty long so I'll adress it tomorrow. Also tomorrow, I'll see about some kind of progression system.
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Lenglon

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Re: Power & Pulse: Harm from the Machine / That Happened
« Reply #93 on: May 20, 2018, 10:24:49 pm »

Short version:
1) am a mage, like foxes, like friends/family, willing to fight but not eager to, think of Rose like a sister, confused by question.
2) was in combat in a desert, didn't like it.
3) going back to city to regroup.
4) willing to change.
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((I don't think heating something that is right above us to a ridiculous degree is very smart. Worst case scenario we become +metal statues+. This is a finely crafted metal statue. It is encrusted with sharkmist and HMRC. On the item is an image of HMRC and Pancaek. Pancaek is laughing. The HMRC is melting. The artwork relates to the encasing of the HMRC in metal by Pancaek during the Mission of Many People.))

randomgenericusername

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Re: Power & Pulse: Harm from the Machine / That Happened
« Reply #94 on: May 20, 2018, 10:29:37 pm »

((I don't know if I should be hoping for Tanya to get back to the team and survive this or to be stuck forever in limbo so Ursus gets the chance to enter the mage team.  :-\ Either way, I'm interested on what's going on.))
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Devastator

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Re: Power & Pulse: Harm from the Machine / That Happened
« Reply #95 on: May 21, 2018, 01:46:50 pm »

Nah, damage was about even.  There was some failure, but that was mostly because of a lack of teamwork..  IMO, one person shooting RC's mech and there would have been no incoming fire, a quick heal for the knocked out mage, one more set of lightning bolts, and that's a mage victory.  There were lots of other options, such as light-created decoys or teleporting an armed grenade to your hand, and then blinking away.  Lots of creative possibilites, lots of room for battlefield shaping, just gotta team up and work as a group.
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Lenglon

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Re: Power & Pulse: Harm from the Machine / That Happened
« Reply #96 on: May 21, 2018, 03:26:50 pm »

Catagorically wrong in every single respect. Lets take this line-by-line.

IMO, one person shooting RC's mech and there would have been no incoming fire
Shot with what? Donnell's nothing or Tanya's flash-bangs or anti-unarmored-personel rifle? Nico was our only effective long-range offense.

, a quick heal for the knocked out mage,
Healing speed of regen spec magic used on another is untested, could have easilly taken several turns.

one more set of lightning bolts,
Reliant on nico being combat-capable promptly, see above.

 and that's a mage victory.  There were lots of other options, such as light-created decoys
Tanya was being shot at while invis, decoys without a thermal component would have been useless.

or teleporting an armed grenade to your hand, and then blinking away.
Both out of range for blink uses (I tried to blink stuff to the mechs and was told its a no-go without even a die roll) and suicidal if the grenades use impact fuses, which they probably did unless they were airburst.

So... yeah, no. There's a damned good reason I had Tanya risk a Push for an immediate evac. We didn't have even a halfway decent chance. Hell, I literally couldn't even get in range. And this is despite EVERY SINGLE MAGE having either Blink or Mobility. This entire event was a shooting gallery.

And take note that the mages RAN OUT OF MANA at the end. The turn that was bypassed was our SIT STILL AND BE HELPLESS turn. Healing HAD to be delayed an extra turn simply for that alone, even ignoring all other factors.

Look, the mage teamcomp was:
Healer/Tank
Kite/Damage
Recon/Disruption.

Kite/Damage went down. Recon was not applicable, and that left our healer/tank to try to get Damage back up whilst under clear line of fire of Every. Single. Mech.
The teamfight was lost the instant Nico went down. After that we could only do damage control.
« Last Edit: May 21, 2018, 03:35:39 pm by Lenglon »
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Dustan Hache

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Re: Power & Pulse: Harm from the Machine / That Happened
« Reply #97 on: May 21, 2018, 03:44:17 pm »

Nah, damage was about even.  There was some failure, but that was mostly because of a lack of teamwork..  IMO, one person shooting RC's mech and there would have been no incoming fire, a quick heal for the knocked out mage, one more set of lightning bolts, and that's a mage victory.  There were lots of other options, such as light-created decoys or teleporting an armed grenade to your hand, and then blinking away.  Lots of creative possibilites, lots of room for battlefield shaping, just gotta team up and work as a group.
The damage is far from even. Depending on how lenglon's private adventure turns out, we may be down one man, having done minimal damage with the maximum teamwork possible for our group given the scenario.

I would have engaged RC if they were not outside of my range (which is very short, given that my best ranged weapon is a buckler thrown as a chakram) and I didn't end up spending 2/3 turns running at the Mechs just to get in range. There was no cover, no battlefield shaping ability I could reasonably perform without a push (and even with that, it would barely shape the field at all. Summoning bucklers everywhere wouldnt provide much in the way of cover or assault.)

On top of that, I am the designated medic for the team, and even with my enhanced resilience against harm I would be unable to permanently stop a member of your team Unless i unintentionally killed them by destroying a vital life-support system or similar indirect death.
« Last Edit: May 21, 2018, 03:47:28 pm by Dustan Hache »
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I figure at some point, you're just gonna run outta fucks to give and just off yourself whenever you get hurt at all. It's not like there's any downsides to it. Hangover? Suicide will fix that. Stubbed your toe? Suicide. Headache? Suicide. Papercut? Suicide.

Radio Controlled

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Re: Power & Pulse: Harm from the Machine / That Happened
« Reply #98 on: May 21, 2018, 05:25:11 pm »

While I don't know how it looked from the mage side, I can safely say that this wasn't a one sided stomp by any means, the mech situation wasn't exactly roses and sunshine either. Some of us were in a pretty bad spot, and if the mages had pressed on or if some rolls had gone a little different they had a very decent shot at winning here. Even then, I do admit the terrain did somewhat favor us, and starting off the mission with both sides seeing each other did rather limit the maneuvering possible. A straight up shootout starting at range naturally favors the shooty faction more (though even then, we got exactly 1 turn of uncontested shooting, the turn after that the blue mage already had us eating electrobolts for breakfast, so let's not overstate things either). Similarly, it's not like in the previous game the mechs didn't take any damage (quite a bit of it self-inflicted though it may be).

I do still think the mages certainly have the potential to be very powerful and versatile given the descriptions of some of those powers and the rules as-stated, though it's certainly possible those powers are not quite all they promise to be when actually used (for example, on a few occasions I asked Egan about a potential nonconvential use of a mage power, he shot down the ideas on grounds of "I don't want that to be possible/I don't like that idea"). It does sound like maybe you guys went into this round a bit undergunned though?

So, assuming not every match is gonna be an empty arena where we start of within visual range, I think the wizards should still be quite competitive. Still, I'm not one to dismiss where the weight of the evidence seems to be right now. Coupled with:

((I don't know if I should be hoping for Tanya to get back to the team and survive this or to be stuck forever in limbo so Ursus gets the chance to enter the mage team.  :-\ Either way, I'm interested on what's going on.))

It sounds like a potential solution would be to have an extra player on the mage team? It would get a person off the wait list, and if mechs are indeed more powerful than mages it might balance things out (and if not, well, maybe a mage faction stomp should still be entertaining to see). It'd be a slightly larger workload for Egan though, so it'd depend on whether he feels up to it or not.
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Lenglon

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Re: Power & Pulse: Harm from the Machine / That Happened
« Reply #99 on: May 21, 2018, 05:37:39 pm »

RC, we didn't start in visual range of each other.
Mechs saw mages, yes, but we didn't see you.
We got a 'hey, something seems wrong, and theres a metalic glint in the distance'.
Thats all we got.
The reason Tanya stood still for most of turn 1 was I was selfshifting improved senses to try to find out what's up. The other two went with a blind charge in the direction of the glint of metal. We didn't actually know we were in combat until turn 2.
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((I don't think heating something that is right above us to a ridiculous degree is very smart. Worst case scenario we become +metal statues+. This is a finely crafted metal statue. It is encrusted with sharkmist and HMRC. On the item is an image of HMRC and Pancaek. Pancaek is laughing. The HMRC is melting. The artwork relates to the encasing of the HMRC in metal by Pancaek during the Mission of Many People.))

Egan_BW

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Re: Power & Pulse: Harm from the Machine / That Happened
« Reply #100 on: May 21, 2018, 05:43:56 pm »

I didn't want to go through rolling perception for everyone, including people on both sides who would have advantage to do that, so I just rolled once for each team. It would... probably be logical to give mages advantage normally if I'm doing it like that, given that they're looking out for larger targets and have a larger field of vision when mechs are low-power.
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Lenglon

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Re: Power & Pulse: Harm from the Machine / That Happened
« Reply #101 on: May 21, 2018, 06:06:39 pm »

It'd be better to start us with nobody having visual of the other at all, so we can establish baseline trarvel posture and maybe not decide to wander around blindly in a large open area without cover as short-range combattents? I for one would have advocated traveling at night and resting hidden and sheltered during the day.

Whatever. This round's over now. I mostly want to resolve the situation Tanya put herself in and start planning for the future.
« Last Edit: May 21, 2018, 06:11:29 pm by Lenglon »
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((I don't think heating something that is right above us to a ridiculous degree is very smart. Worst case scenario we become +metal statues+. This is a finely crafted metal statue. It is encrusted with sharkmist and HMRC. On the item is an image of HMRC and Pancaek. Pancaek is laughing. The HMRC is melting. The artwork relates to the encasing of the HMRC in metal by Pancaek during the Mission of Many People.))

Radio Controlled

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Re: Power & Pulse: Harm from the Machine / That Happened
« Reply #102 on: May 21, 2018, 06:20:03 pm »

From the mech perspective, it did seem like you guys had spotted us given that you immediately high-tailed it in our direction, but if that was more due to a lucky guess despite a bad roll then fair enough.

I didn't want to go through rolling perception for everyone, including people on both sides who would have advantage to do that, so I just rolled once for each team. It would... probably be logical to give mages advantage normally if I'm doing it like that, given that they're looking out for larger targets and have a larger field of vision when mechs are low-power.

Won't that mean that people who took perception related traits or equipment or powers are disadvantaged then?
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Quote from: you know who you are
21:26   <XYZ>: I know nothing about this, but I have strong opinions about it.
Fucking hell, you guys are worse than the demons.

Egan_BW

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Power & Pulse: Progress?
« Reply #103 on: May 21, 2018, 06:34:28 pm »

Alright, so some people wanted some kind of *mumble mumble* progression system to "reward" you for surviving and/or being victorious. So I guess that would be smart.
This pertains to everyone, and that means you.

When you survive a mission, you'll get 2d6 XP points. If you completed your mission successfully, you'll get an additional 5 points.
If you want small special things done, like extra spikes on your mech or an APC to park in your pocket dimension, you can spend a few points between missions on that. Exactly what this gets you is subject to approval and possibly dice rolls.
Also between missions, you can spend 10 XP to get promoted. The benefits of such are detailed below.
Finally, while on mission if you have 10 or more XP and perform a particularly impressive feat, you can spend 10 points to gain a boon similar to what you'd get for absorbing an enemy.

Having a higher rank will let you command any friendly units that are present (and theoretically PCs that you outrank), have a small squad of NPCs, and have more say in what the next mission will be.
From now on, I'm going to provide a few different scenarios that you can vote between, with whichever one getting the most votes being the next mission. Players with a higher rank will have more votes, letting you choose a mission more suited to your strengths. In addition your votes will be hidden from players on the opposing side until I count them.

Here's what rank will get you, specifically:
Rank 1: 1 vote. This is what you start at.
Rank 2: 2 votes, authority over friendly NPCs.
Rank 3: 3 votes, 2 NPC grunts to outfit and command as you please.
Rank 4: 3 votes, 4 NPC grunts, and fancier equipment for yourself.

Finally, here's what you get for that last mission:

syvarris: [3+2]+5=10

Hiddenleafguy: [1+6]+5=12

Radio Controlled: [1+2]+5=8

Lenglon: TBD

Dustan Hache: [1+3]=4

Yottawhat: [5+2]=7
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Devastator

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Re: Power & Pulse: Harm from the Machine / That Happened
« Reply #104 on: May 21, 2018, 06:36:10 pm »

"or teleporting an armed grenade to your hand, and then blinking away."

Both out of range for blink uses (I tried to blink stuff to the mechs and was told its a no-go without even a die roll) and suicidal if the grenades use impact fuses, which they probably did unless they were airburst.

Spoiler: Lenglon (click to show/hide)
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