BCZ Retrospective XIII: New Active Defenses.

The Active Defenses (ADs) in the core book are good enough to cover the needs of most PCs. That meant I had to come up with new niches for them to explore in the expansion. I sat down and took note of things that they were good or not great at, both from a conceptual and mechanics standpoint, and made a conscious effort to shore up those weaknesses. The results are below:

Learning Computer
When I was writing BCG I knew that I didn't want an Active Defense that denied Tension. Tension is the backbone of many of the game's coolest mechanics and denying Tension would make the game less fun for everyone. With that said, the idea of an AD that got better with time stuck with me, so instead of denying Tension I figured I could make Tension be the Defense bonus in the expansion. The result is Learning Computer, an Upgrade that is probably a little underpowered (spending 2 Energy as a reaction without the ability to cut down the cost to 1 for a weaker version is harsh). It sits in the awkward place where it would be too good at 1 Energy but at 2 Energy it takes way too long to get better than Custom Defense. It is a good idea, just needs some tweaking and fine-tuning.

Reflecting Barrier and Repulsion Field
When I first wrote Custom Defense, it let you choose between Melee and Shooting and Absorbing Armor was for Beams and non-Beams. They got changed to let you choose between all four options for gameplay reasons. I wasn't able to come up with a good Beam/non-Beam AD for the expansion, but I had some ideas for Anti-Melee and Anti-Shooting ADs. Both of these are a bit lacking on the defensive side, but the utility value is pretty great. Repulsion Field is generally more useful, but spending 1 Energy to do 3 Damage is a very good deal.

Attack Absorbers
This was the last of the ADs in the expansion that I wrote. I was short on ideas for defensive abilities, so I flipped the idea on its head and thought of making an AD that granted an offensive benefit instead. It doesn't have much of a story because it... Was always okay. It does what it sets out to do. I think it could afford to be a little more generous and make it grant an Advantage against all Enemies. There's the possibility of stacking Advantages for an absurdly strong attack after surviving a round of focus fire, but it's quite expensive in Energy terms and the mediocre Defense bonus it gives doesn't help you actually survive that round of focus fire, so it should be okay.

Dispersion Aura
The first version of this Upgrade was called Aegis Barrier, costed a flat 5 Energy and provided a 10 Damage shield like that of Absolute Barrier in a Range equal to your Systems. The idea was that it was an Absolute Barrier that you could share with the team but was less flexible due to the static Energy cost. You know, because Absolute Barrier is a totally balanced ability that everyone should have access to at all times. As you may be able to guess from the previous sentence, this was extremely broken. One playtester made a graph showing how you could space out units in a defense matrix formation to make all participants provide 10 extra HP to each other, basically giving all of them 40 HP on demand and it made me scream on the inside. Now, I'll admit was actually trying to add some counters for artillery and artillery + technique builds in the expansion, but this was the wrong kind of counter - the kind that made the game unplayable. The new Dispersion Aura grants a powerful, effective Defense boost against multitarget attacks and lets a designated shieldbearer unit protect its allies with it, but doesn't do anything about the other 75% of Weapons. It is a perfect partner to ECS from the core book as well.

Organic Barrier
I like this, it provides great utility value for healers and other support-oriented units, even if it is a very dangerous design. Organic Barrier lets you stockpile your resources from one turn towards the next, which is extremely exploitable in the majority of games that have such mechanics. If I was aware of this, why did it go to print, then? Well, I thought I'd keep it in check by not having any energy sinks that could be used offensively in the game. What were people going to do, put up an Absolute Barrier for 30 bonus HP every other Turn? Psshhh. It was a good idea, except that I forgot Chain Explosion was a thing in the game... Ooops! To be honest, I still think the problem here is Chain Explosion rather than Organic Barrier, and would rather do away with the former than the latter.

I quite like the new ADs in general, the worst thing I can say about them is that Learning Computer is underpowered and Organic Barrier lets people pull off crazy Chain Explosion combos. Reflecting Barrier and Repulsion Field are some of my favorite AD designs and the kind of thing I'd like to do more of in the future. Organic Barrier is another one I'm very fond of, but I understand better now just how careful I have to be with that kind of mechanic.

Next: New Restoration Upgrades

Gimmick Out!