In addition to the Tension touchups mentioned last time, I want to try and put some bandaids on the Character-scale combat system. What that system really needs is a full rewrite, which is beyond the scope of the remaster, but I think I can at least tweak the numbers here and there to make things a little bit better.
In general the Match subsystem suffers from being:
1) Heavily skewed towards PCs trained in fitness + combat
2) Exceedingly lethal to PCs without awareness + willpower both
3) Not very engaging even when you have all those things.
In theory, Matches are for the Fitness specialists to show off and get things done in a single roll or two, much like PCs with other builds can get things done in other scenes the same way. In practice, gaming groups attempt to stick the whole party in Matches and most of the players have a bad time while one (or two) carry the rest.
Fortunately, one of the changes to the Remaster already addresses point 1 somewhat by buffing Deathblows and making Offensive Miracles worth using. This way you can use Charm (+ Temperature) or Awareness (+ Phantasm) to keep up with a Fitness + Combat specialist, albeit at the cost of self-damage plus lower damage output once you run out of free Deathblows. A focused combat specialist will still be better, as they should be, but at least there's ways for other PCs to keep up.
For point 2 I want to add a change to the way PC Damage works. Right now, everyone who loses Layers of Plot Armor must Test Willpower vs fairly high DNs (10, 15, 20) to avoid defeat. This method is fine for NPCs but it's too random and disempowering for PCs so I'm going to tweak it a bit. The DNs for resisting Defeat will be 5, 10, 15 and further instances of Damage past that will need a 20. Additionally, Grunt NPCs in Matches will only have one Layer of Plot Armor and are immediately Defeated with no need to roll once it's full. This gives even Intellect builds (for which Matches are supposed to be one of their main weaknesses) a fighting chance against a Grunt or two if they can score some lucky hits before the musclewall NPCs bully them into submission.
As for point 3... Well, it's still not an engaging subsystem, but it's not meant to be. It's there to provide another form of gameplay when you're not doing mecha combat.
In addition to all this, I also want to tweak the Invasive Feature a little. Right now, it's confusing, has math + memory complications and makes PCs drop out of combat to one bad roll, which, while that's definitely part of the terrifying intent behind Invasive, it's probably too much. We're gonna make Invasive (and Crush the Insect) use the same DN 5, 10, 15 and 20 benchmarks for the Systems Tests to give low Systems builds a chance to be in the fight for more than a Round or two and let high Systems builds take it easy for a bit knowing they're safe until they lose one or even two Layers. Also, I'm going to tweak the wording of the Invasive ability itself so it's not a pain in the ass to manage. Here's the new rules text:
Effect: Halve all Damage you do to Enemy Mecha. At the end of your Turn, if you've dealt 3 or more Damage to any Enemy Units during it, their Pilots lose one Layer of Plot Armor. Pilots damaged this way Test Systems instead of Willpower to avoid defeat. For each 3 additional points of Damage dealt during that Turn, they suffer a Disadvantage to the Systems Test.
The trigger is much more limited in that it can only affect one Layer at a time and doesn't work with off-turn damage abilities, so the amount of Damage needed to lower from 5 to 3. 3 Is high enough that Bombardment spam is not going to be enough to insta-wipe all the PCs (because it's all halved) but it is also low enough that any moderately optimized Grunt stands a reasonable chance of doing that much. Rivals and Bosses will be compensate for this low Damage output with Disadvantages to the Systems Test to compensate, making even the first or second attacks moderate threats.
That's all for now. Next month I hope to have the next version out, if nothing goes wrong. See you then.
Gimmick Out.
