- Motherboard
- Power Supply Unit
- Hard Drive
- Monitor
- Keyboard
If your answer was "All of the above", then congratulations! You guessed right!
This time of the year is, almost always, a miserable experience. I cannot describe how much summer hates me, only that the feelings are mutual. Fortunately, now it is March and the Season of Suffering is over. The odds of my computer imploding when the power goes out are dramatically reduced and I can actually sleep more than 3 hours at night. I have upgraded from feeling constantly fatigued, anxious and uncomfortable to the mere existential despair of a meaningless and short stay in this crapsack world. It's great! I'm pumped to write about nerdy game design stuff!
So, we begin BCZ's Mecha chapter with General Upgrades. I said a while ago that Chapter 1 of BCZ had three main goals: To give more tools for the less powerful PC builds, to allow for a greater variety of PC builds and, lastly, to mechanically represent PC concepts that didn't have rules support in the core book. I believe that the General Upgrades are the clearest example for all three of these things. Let's have a look at them:
Defensive Technician and Master Technician
The story of these two can be summarized in four acts:
Not all Techniques are on an equal level, and it was pretty hard to come up with upgrades that would moderately buff Zweihander and Missile Massacre ones without breaking the game when combined with Ground Zero and Reactor Overdrive. It may seem obvious in hindsight, but it actually took me two or three passes until I realized I could simply take away the drawbacks of Zweihander and Missile Massacre. It may not be the most elegant solution, but it is a practical one. Should there be further supplements, expect more abilities that synergize specifically well with underpowered Upgrades and Weapons, calling them out by name.
- Problem #1: Most Techniques are underpowered.
- Solution #1: Create an Upgrade line that makes Techniques stronger.
- Problem #2: This makes the few Techniques that are already decently powerful into absolute monsters.
- Solution #2: Make the Upgrades more generally weaker but stronger if used with the weakest of all Techniques.
Not all Techniques are on an equal level, and it was pretty hard to come up with upgrades that would moderately buff Zweihander and Missile Massacre ones without breaking the game when combined with Ground Zero and Reactor Overdrive. It may seem obvious in hindsight, but it actually took me two or three passes until I realized I could simply take away the drawbacks of Zweihander and Missile Massacre. It may not be the most elegant solution, but it is a practical one. Should there be further supplements, expect more abilities that synergize specifically well with underpowered Upgrades and Weapons, calling them out by name.
Portal Generator
In my first list of "Things I want in the game" that I made during the early planning stages of the expansion, portals and teleportation were near the top. The very first version used to cost very little Energy (1 or 2) and had a Range equal to your Systems. It was hilariously broken, increasing the range of all your weapons by your Systems and letting you have the perfect positioning for all of your area of effect weapons, most notably: Bursts and Lines. It took a few passes until the current version, which is still very useful even though it is something like ten times more expensive.
Power Conversion
Support specialists were weak in the core book. They were very versatile and could trivialize fights with Boss enemies, but they struggled to keep up with all the other PCs in most non-Boss scenarios. There were many reasons for this, but eventually I noticed that one of their big problems was that they didn't get any benefit from Tension, a free resource that every other build could make use of. Power Conversion was my first attempt at solving this issue and it went to print without any changes. It makes it a lot easier to play a Support specialist, who are very hungry for Energy, and lets them take other Upgrades and Powers that suit their role such as Jury-Rig or I Have Control. This may be my favorite General Upgrade in the expansion.
Versatile Model
Versatile Model
One of the problems with point-buy systems is that they encourage you to get very good at doing one thing and only that one thing. In the case of BCG, that means the system wants you to use always the same one weapon in the same circumstances. You can be very good at melee brawls, an amazing sniper, or... Mediocre at everything else. I didn't like that. Versatile Model is an attempt to encourage PCs to diversify a little and to make a niche for medium-range units that don't depend entirely on duels or sniping. It also helps represent generalist units with many weapons, like most protagonist suits in anime series where everyone else has a specialty. It is not a very flashy Upgrade, but it's just strong enough to get the job done without risking being overpowered. I like it a lot.
Extreme Body
I was making custom Upgrades and Weapons for a game I was running, and in this game one of the PCs could transform into a wereshark with powers based on various sea creatures - echolocation like a dolphin's, electricity like an eel's, ink like a squid's, etc. I think you can guess where this is going from that introduction. I wrote an Upgrade that could be used to represent electrified skin and I liked it enough that I decided to make it part of the expansion later. I think the only thing that changed from the first version to the one that went to print were the Energy cost and the "you can't fly to avoid this ability" reminder text, because it was underpowered in all but the most all-in duelist builds.
Maneuverable Transformer
In core BCG, you Transformed either to adapt to your current Terrain or to switch stats from a mobility/defense form to an attack/range form. Either way, once you made the change, you rarely had much reason to go back to the other one. Maneuverable Transformer encourages Transforming units to behave more like Valkyries, changing forms constantly just to outmaneuver and throw off enemies. It used to grant both an offensive Advantage and a defensive Disadvantage at the same time with every activation, but that was a little too good for builds that arguably already could get Terrain specialist and Flight at no Energy cost. The offensive and defensive bonus were worth around 10 MP each, and the flexibility of having the one you need most is juuuust good enough to make it worth the 15 MP cost.
Nanopaste Skeleton and Superior Integration
I have written at length about how the Antimaims (the abilities that mitigate or heal the effects of Maiming) were the hardest part of the game to balance. It should come to the surprise of absolutely no one that the expansion needed to include a few extra ones to fix the weaknesses of the ones in the core book. Nanopaste Skeleton is a weaker Invincible Alloy that PCs can use until they can afford the stronger antimaim. Superior Integration is the opposite, a stronger Integrated Weapons that PCs can take once they've outgrown it and picked up a few extra Weapons to make use of it.
Pulling Field
The lack of tanking mechanics was a common complaint in BCG. You could Duel enemies to draw the attention of one of them and after that the best you could do was pray they didn't have a way to Disengage without using an Action. Pulling Field jumps on the gravity manipulation train flavor text of many of the new abilities in the expansion to justify punishing Enemies that attack your allies with Disadvantages. This is, arguably, much more useful than the free Attack you get from being ignored in a Duel, because it actually protects your allies where free Attacks just punish enemies after they've already hit your backline. Moreover, it doesn't force you to split your MP between offense and defense just so you can punish enemies effectively. I like it.
Skirmisher Frame
This used to give you an offensive Advantage and a defensive Disadvantage for each 5 Zones moved during your Turn. To put it politely, this was bananas. Boosted Lance already has a reputation of being nigh-unstoppable in games with large battlefields, no special Terrain, and no enemies with Speed debuffs. Imagine if it had +2 to +4 to each Might Test and +2 to +4 Defense on top of that! The new version works well for units built around maximized Speed but also goes well with any build that likes to stay at medium range while moving around the battlefield. Like Versatile Model, this helps to represent anime conventions that don't fit the usual RPG molds of "stay in one spot and swing sword" or "stay in one spot and fling projectiles".
Internal Fortification
I've said before that BCG can suffer from being a bit too close to a game of rocket tag. This Upgrade helps mitigate that issue and enables proper defensive builds to withstand as much as double the amount of punishment when at sufficiently high PL. This ability is so handy to have around after PLs 2 and 3, that it was baked into the Oldtype Feature to make it easier for NPCs to access it.
Limit Engine
Probably the coolest Upgrade in the entire book. It is very strong and comes with a hefty MP price tag and dangerous conditions for making the most of its power. Limit Engine was originally called Spiral Engine and was created as part of a short Gurren Lagann blog-only supplement. Because it grants both Energy and Tension, which are used to power up all sorts of Super Robot hijinx, it is a perfect fusion of flavor and gameplay. This is my other favorite General Upgrade in the expansion and the competition within my heart between this and Power Conversion is a fierce one.
Warp Step
Warp Step
Would you believe me if I told you that my first idea for a teleportation upgrade was to let people use Systems in place of Speed ON TOP of all the extra effects that this thing already gives you? It was a very good pick for a sniper or a build with Artillery Frame. You could teleport anywhere you wanted and blow up everything with perfect positioning, like Zeorymer. In that way, the Upgrade was very true to its flavor, but the idea of replacing one stat with another was terrible and I was told as much until I removed that part from the Upgrade.
Transpatial Randomizer
I think that Transpatial Randomizer was a commission, but I can't find the design notes to confirm. The way I remember it, the request was worded in such a way that it made me think of a Rod of Wonder from D&D. I wish I could recall the specific details, but when I thought "Make something random happen" I immediately thought "Oooh, tables of randomly-activated unique effects! Or tables of randomly activated Powers! Or Support Upgrades! There's so much potential here!" I ended up going with a table of random Support Upgrades, as they're the single most varied category of abilitise in the game and using all of them would make for a sufficiently complex and wacky table with plenty of results. It is a really cool Upgrade... But, unfortunately, it is too good. All Support Upgrades are balanced so that they're worth spending an Action. That means Transpatial Randomizer gives you a free Action every Turn for 2 Energy and 20 MP. I bet on the inherent randomness of the Upgrade to balance it. In theory, one third of the time it would give you something useless (or a hindrance), one third of the time it would be mildly useful, and the last third of the time it would be a huge boon. In practice, you only felt like you were wasting your Energy with one of every five activations or so, while the other four were half good and half great. This should probably cost 2 more Energy to make it more of an investment. Some games would balance something like this by adding results that punish the user, but that's not how I roll. Other than that, I quite like Transpatial Randomizer, it's a pretty elegant take on the idea of making something random but fun happen.
Whew, that's two thousand words about the General Upgrades of Battle Century Z. I did say this would probably be the longest post in the series! At any rate, it's good to be back.
Next: Active Defenses.
Gimmick Out.
I think that Transpatial Randomizer was a commission, but I can't find the design notes to confirm. The way I remember it, the request was worded in such a way that it made me think of a Rod of Wonder from D&D. I wish I could recall the specific details, but when I thought "Make something random happen" I immediately thought "Oooh, tables of randomly-activated unique effects! Or tables of randomly activated Powers! Or Support Upgrades! There's so much potential here!" I ended up going with a table of random Support Upgrades, as they're the single most varied category of abilitise in the game and using all of them would make for a sufficiently complex and wacky table with plenty of results. It is a really cool Upgrade... But, unfortunately, it is too good. All Support Upgrades are balanced so that they're worth spending an Action. That means Transpatial Randomizer gives you a free Action every Turn for 2 Energy and 20 MP. I bet on the inherent randomness of the Upgrade to balance it. In theory, one third of the time it would give you something useless (or a hindrance), one third of the time it would be mildly useful, and the last third of the time it would be a huge boon. In practice, you only felt like you were wasting your Energy with one of every five activations or so, while the other four were half good and half great. This should probably cost 2 more Energy to make it more of an investment. Some games would balance something like this by adding results that punish the user, but that's not how I roll. Other than that, I quite like Transpatial Randomizer, it's a pretty elegant take on the idea of making something random but fun happen.
Whew, that's two thousand words about the General Upgrades of Battle Century Z. I did say this would probably be the longest post in the series! At any rate, it's good to be back.
Next: Active Defenses.
Gimmick Out.
