Remaster Mechanics III

Since I don't have the new Remaster update yet (it turns out that when you say "it should be done by [date] if nothing goes wrong", things usually do go wrong) I will talk a bit about the changes to the Reinforcements mechanic, which is pretty much the only one to have gotten a full revamp:

1) The first and most important change (because the rest of their mechanics were rewritten around it) is that Reinforcements are now placed on the map. They can get attacked by Enemies just as if they were PCs. By far the most common complaint about Reinforcements was that they had to "choose" to get attacked on their own by deliberately taking the Overwhelm Action. This presented a disconnect between mechanics and narrative that was too jarring for a number of people who wanted to use them and it's why I'm now trying something a little bit different.  These Reinforcements can move around the map, must be targeted the old fashioned way by Weapons, have a Defense rating, etc. 

2) They have a fixed initiative of 20 instead of 10. This guarantees they will go first 99% of the time. The idea is that it makes their buffs and debuffs a lot more effective. This will be necessary because they're extremely vulnerable and enemies allowed to freely attack them will probably take them out in short order. So now there is a more interesting dynamic between them and the PCs, who must protect them in order to keep them around. 

3) Speaking of said boons, they no longer have multiple abilities per Round. Now they can only use one Power per Turn (granted, some of them cost 0, I'm just trying to keep the number of extra rules to a minimum here). Instead of having a small pool of regenerating Reinforcement Points, they have a larger one that only goes down over time. Several Powers have stayed the same (barring an appropriate point cost change), while others have been rebalanced to the new rules more thoroughly.

I'm going to be tweaking these a bit more as we go. I think that, as they stand right now, they're probably too fragile (a number of Grunt attacks equal to their power level will take them out) and won't have much of a chance to do anything at all. Also I sense that a few paragraphs could afford to be clearer, so even beyond the mechanics there is a need for touching up the text.

At the very least, I think they need a couple more paragraphs regarding their use. How much should they be getting attacked, letting the Players know they must be protected, etc.

That's all for now.

Gimmick Out.