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[Dustan Hache]

Oh, so I'm not allowed to make attempts at improving my mana so I have more than three turns before downtime/push? Well that's just great.

[syvarris]

It would be utterly ridiculous if you could improve your mana limit with only two XP.  That'd mean 10 XP, equivalent to one mech kill or one promotion, could also upgrade you to 8 mana, basically invalidating the mechanic.  Would you like the mechs to be able to go from 100 Arcane to 270 Arcane?

[Dustan Hache]

Honestly I would not mind that. It would level the playing field a bit by making Mechs last longer before the battle of attrition sets in. Overpowering them with direct force would still be an option.
The only thing that would need to change is mage survivability, which Egan intends to adjust anyway.

[randomgenericusername]

Mechs have better armor and while magic might be strong, the mages will still be outgunned by the mech weapons. Maybe if the mage team was larger that the mech team, it would be more fair for them.

[Lenglon]

To be fair, I think this last match should be thrown out of analysis. The mage team had the deck stacked against us via starting conditions, with it overall being a worst-case scenario for us. An extreme like that isnt useful for evaluating balance unless it is a recurring event.

[Lenglon]

Attempt to requisition new gear more fitting my new situation and ability set. If reasonably possible I'd like to sit on 10xp for use mid-mission if applicable.

[Radio Controlled]

To be fair, I think this last match should be thrown out of analysis. The mage team had the deck stacked against us via starting conditions, with it overall being a worst-case scenario for us. An extreme like that isnt useful for evaluating balance unless it is a recurring event.

And hey, even with the deck stacked against the mages you guys still almost won, or at the very least would have given the mechs a bloody nose in return.

Mechs have better armor and while magic might be strong, the mages will still be outgunned by the mech weapons. Maybe if the mage team was larger that the mech team, it would be more fair for them.

What is the system for deciding which mage players get to go on the next mission, by the way?  Does the current roster stay until one bites the dust, or will the active team be chosen from the pool of available characters (assuming the next mission doesn't get extra mages)?

[Lenglon]

@RC: we had our single full-offense build character get off a single attack, which did neither cause injury to any pilots nor acquire a mobility kill on any mechs. Said mage was nearly killed by return fire, and was effectively removed from the fight entirely.
That is the only attack any of us got off. That's not even a bloody nose. Tanya alone has suffered an order of power more lasting damage than your entire team combined, ignoring on-ship self-inflicted suicide. And if we had tried to fight it out despite the horrible start im fairly certain wed have lost at least one more mage on our mana-regen turn, with no gains made, followed by a TPK shortly after when you had only one target and a fireing line to work with.

[Radio Controlled]

Hmm, I don't think that is an accurate assessment of the damage we had endured (also from a single attack, I might add), but that's neither here nor there. Either way, we'll find out soon enough (well, 'soon') if the balance needs tweaking or not.

[Parisbre56]

So, I haven't read anything except the first post. That said, have a mech:

Spoiler: Mech Pilot: Eshu Quaermius (click to show/hide)

Name: Eshu Quaermius

Appearance: Pale and thin. Shiny long dark hair. Thick beard obscures most of his face. Wears his uniform but doesn't really take care of it, leaving it crumpled and slightly torn. Should his uniform ever be removed, one could see the traditional tribal tattoos marking his body and some scars that remind him of past hunts.

Personality: Quiet, focused, direct, sticks to himself, prone to anger, quick to violence.

Backstory: Eshu was part of a tribe of hunter-gatherers living in the frozen wastes of their world. He was a hunter but not a very good one, not patient or calm enough to wait for the beasts to emerge from their breathing holes on the ice, always too quick to rush into unknown caves or charge into a fight against a polar bear. As it was, he probably wouldn't have a long and happy life but at least he would have been content (maybe even have a family) until some snow tiger tore his throat out.

This all changed when blinded by anger and jealousy, he killed one of his fellow tribesmen. The tribes despised hunters of men, thinking of them as something less than human. Knowing that they would most likely kill him or exile him (which is pretty much the same as killing him when one is forced to survive in the wastes) he stole as much supplies as he could and escaped. He did not want to die. So if he couldn't live amongst the tribes, if he were to be a hunter of man, then he would go and join the greatest hunters of men there were.

To that end he reached the temporary camp set up by the Homeworlders and tried to reach the Mech storage area. Not knowing the ways of the people of Homeworld and being incapable of understanding their language, he would had probably been killed before even coming close to boarding the Skip-Ship. However, as luck would have it, after he was found and subdued, some official thought training him would be an interesting experiment. He didn't mind. He trained under him and eventually became competent enough to pilot a Mech. He was even given his trainer's last name. It all worked out in the end... for a certain definition of things working out.

Nowadays he is mostly employed for his ability to kill and attract attention. He is not a very good pilot. He probably won't have a long and happy life but at least for now he has his life and he is content with it.

Health: Some old wounds sting a bit when the weather is bad and he lost some toes to frostbite, but otherwise okay.

Traits:
 - Hunter's Aim: Knows when to strike to hit his mark.
 - Strong-willed: Resistant to fear, tiredness and other mental effects.

 - Mute/Antisocial: Though he understands the basics of the Language, he is unable to speak it very well. Even if he was, he flat out refuses to speak, send texts, write mail or otherwise communicate. The most one can get out of him is grunts and angry utterances, maybe a gesture if he's feeling chatty. This causes no end of trouble with Command.

Inventory:
 - Ceremonial Knife: Used to quickly end the life of caught animals to prevent their suffering. The same knife he used to kill his brother.
 - Bone flute: A flute he carved out of the bones of some beast he killed. Uses it when bored during downtime. Not very good at it.
 - Some MREs
 - A standard rifle


Titan "Gidaia"
      Appearance: Painted an intimidating matte black.

To help him communicate, the techs have installed lights on the Mech's "head" that change color depending on his emotions (mostly read through facial expressions). That, combined with the lack of communication and the  unintelligible distorted noises coming out of the Mech's speakers (he has left the "intimidating Titan" voice filter on) have led to rumors that the mech is actually a robot, rumors which the techs were all too happy to spread.
      Arcane: 100/100
         Low-power (3A)
         Combat mode (10A)
      Integrity:
         Torso: 100/100
         RArm: 25/25
         LArm: 25/25
         RLeg: 40/40
         LLeg: 40/40
      Hardpoints:
         Heavy weaponR: Vulcan Cannon 1/10
A rotary cannon that fires an absurd amount of bullets per second, to the point where it's more convenient to measure the ammo left in seconds rather than bullets.
         Heavy weaponL: Inferno Cannon 1/5
Essentially a giant flamethrower
         Heavy weaponB: Devastator Lance (10A) 1/5
There's a lot of big science words used here, what with the flash fusion of arcane energy with metamaterial packets, but the important thing is this: That thing fires a powerful particle beam for a fraction of a second. As its name suggests, the beam devastates anything in its path.

------

The tribal society described was inspired by Shanidar and its subsequent novels
http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/shanidar.htm
The cannons are inspired by WH40k Titans
The chest Lance is inspired by every giant Mecha ever

Edit: Here's a more compact sheet, for your convenience:

Spoiler: Mech Pilot: Eshu Quaermius (click to show/hide)

Name: Eshu Quaermius

Appearance: Pale and thin. Shiny long dark hair. Thick beard obscures most of his face. Wears his uniform but doesn't really take care of it, leaving it crumpled and slightly torn. Should his uniform ever be removed, one could see the traditional tribal tattoos marking his body and some scars that remind him of past hunts.

Personality: Quiet, focused, direct, sticks to himself, prone to anger, quick to violence.

Health: Fine.

Traits:
 - Hunter's Aim: Knows when to strike to hit his mark.
 - Strong-willed: Resistant to fear, tiredness and other mental effects.

 - Mute/Antisocial: Though he understands the basics of the Language, he is unable to speak it very well. Even if he was, he flat out refuses to speak, send texts, write mail or otherwise communicate. The most one can get out of him is grunts and angry utterances, maybe a gesture if he's feeling chatty. This causes no end of trouble with Command.

Inventory:
 - Ceremonial Knife: Used to quickly end the life of caught animals to prevent their suffering. The same knife he used to kill his brother.
 - Bone flute: A flute he carved out of the bones of some beast he killed. Uses it when bored during downtime. Not very good at it.
 - Some MREs
 - A standard rifle

Titan "Gidaia"
      Appearance: Painted an intimidating matte black. Lights on head change color depending on emotion. Emits distorted mechanical noises instead of speech.

      Arcane: 100/100
         Low-power (3A)
         Combat mode (10A)
      Integrity:
         Torso: 100/100
         RArm: 25/25
         LArm: 25/25
         RLeg: 40/40
         LLeg: 40/40
      Hardpoints:
         Heavy weaponR: Vulcan Cannon 1/10
A rotary cannon that fires an absurd amount of bullets per second, to the point where it's more convenient to measure the ammo left in seconds rather than bullets.
         Heavy weaponL: Inferno Cannon 1/5
Essentially a giant flamethrower
         Heavy weaponB: Devastator Lance (10A) 1/5
There's a lot of big science words used here, what with the flash fusion of arcane energy with metamaterial packets, but the important thing is this: That thing fires a powerful particle beam for a fraction of a second. As its name suggests, the beam devastates anything in its path.

[TricMagic]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Name:It's TricMagic! ...Maybe.. Call me Shadow.
Appearance:
Personality: if you play a generic military dude with zero personality even after digging some i swear to god-God's out right now, just me here~
Health: Mentally Insane but that's just what you think.
Traits: Rtd Character, Forth-Wall Awareness, Mentally Insane. ...Use you own judgment, these are probably impossible to balance. Yeah, it is..
Inventory: Shit you're carrying. Like, on your actual person. This probably can't be a whole warehouse of tnt unless you have that one thing where it actually totally could be. Hint hint.
Well, I do have this thing called Hammerspace..
Here's a Hammer GM.
Catch!!

"Still need this, I, TricMagic, throw this hammer at you, the GM."
I'm on the Mage Side by the Way.

[Egan_BW]

You are aware of the forth wall? Okay. You don't exist though.

[Radio Controlled]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Name:It's TricMagic! ...Maybe.. Call me Shadow.
Appearance:
Personality: if you play a generic military dude with zero personality even after digging some i swear to god-God's out right now, just me here~
Health: Mentally Insane but that's just what you think.
Traits: Rtd Character, Forth-Wall Awareness, Mentally Insane. ...Use you own judgment, these are probably impossible to balance. Yeah, it is..
Inventory: Shit you're carrying. Like, on your actual person. This probably can't be a whole warehouse of tnt unless you have that one thing where it actually totally could be. Hint hint.
Well, I do have this thing called Hammerspace..
Here's a Hammer GM.
Catch!!

"Still need this, I, TricMagic, throw this hammer at you, the GM."
I'm on the Mage Side by the Way.

Hey there new meat! Exemplary enthusiasm, but if you want to get an actual shot at getting shot at by the superior faction mech faction, you might want to redo your charsheet a bit.

Now, the idea of a character thinking the world he lives in isn't real and that he's being observed by some otherworldly entity, and so decides to put on a show, is probably salvageable (just another brand of insanity). But as for your actual charsheet, you might want to tone down the overly meta vibe and write up an actual character personality, for example. Similarly, you'll want to rephrase your traits so it's clear what they're supposed to do in-game, or at least add a description so the gm has something to work with.

Oh, and if you do rework your charsheet, might not be a bad idea to put it inside a spoiler, the game's more fun if you don't know what to expect imo.

[TricMagic]

(Myself)That's half the fun though.. I'm kinda out of creative juice, so I figured, a zany character would be fun. Back to In-game-

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Mana: 3/3 (Required to do magic. Any turn where you use any amount of magic, mana decreases by 1. Any turn where you use no magic, or that you Push, mana is refilled to full. If you have 0 mana you cannot use any magic but Push.)
Push: 0/0 (Push as an action to refill mana and perform an extra-strong spell. Left number is your current amount of Push, left number is your current Minimum push. Minimum is half of current (rounded down), when you rest Push is decreased to the minimum.)
Mana Tether: (pick one from below.)I'll take this-
It's Piko-Piko Hammertime!
Powers: (pick four from below.)

Mobility like the Matrix~
Mobility
      Magical simple: Greatly increases ease of movement, allowing one to run faster than any mundane human, leap great distances, climb walls quickly, etc.
      Magical passive: Can dodge attacks such as gunshots, which cannot be avoided normally.


Cause who doesn't want to take down an airship~
Power
      Passive: Greatly increases physical strength.
      Magical simple: Improves reaction time, giving you a big advantage in melee combat.
      Push: Become impossibly strong.

Because I need my Sacred Arrows, I'll be taking this too~
   Elebolt: Pick an element to use. Can be any simple material, or form of energy. Ice, acid, steel, fire, heat, kinetic energy, etc.Ether-type Light, the strongest thing you've never seen!
      Magical simple: Fires a bolt of the chosen element.
      Magical complex: Fire a burst or spray of bolts.
      Push: Create a coherent beam of elemental energy, dealing heavy damage to whatever it hits. Multiple beams from different people can be combined in order to produce The Ultimate Attack*

 Elebending: Pick an element to use. Can be any simple material, or form of energy. Ice, acid, steel, fire, heat, kinetic energy, etc.
      Magical simple: Manipulate the chosen element on a small scale. Works within reach range only.
      Magical complex: Manipulate the chosen element, with potentially very energetic results. There must be some source to work with; you can't just conjure things out of thin air.
      Push: Create and manipulate a large quantity of the chosen element.

I'll need this too if I want to be a Bad-ass Destroyer. I Foresee it!



Want to know what my traits mean, operator? Well~ It's not like these other guys realize our universe is a Rtd. And they called me Mad~ It's all part of my charming personality.

-as an Aside, personally, I want to wreck some Mechs, and blow stuff up. And I'm very good at that.

Ah well, tune in next time! At least if the GM doesn't retcon me.

[Lunardog15]

but but but he is perfect
how do you know that this is the best kind of dude
how