Thoughts/Suggestions on the RPG

[David Rodriguez]

As I was driving home the other night instead of list building I was brainstorming about certain aspects of the RPG and what I would change/add 

1) Royal Guard Interceptor Title: Your 2nd, 3rd, 4th & 5th Mods are each one XP cheaper as long as you fly this ship. 

The Interceptor's unique title is now pointless at first I was thinking an upfront bonus or free mod but then everyone would jump on it. At this point we will have 2 mods at most so the bonus won't be game changing while it captures the spirit of the original by encouraging you to devote points into mods as you progress. This gives you a reason to always fly them and saves you at max 4 XP which seems like a fair trade off considering this is the only title that doesn't break the rules i.e. B-Wing crew, Y-Wing bombs, A-Wing double EPTs.

2) Each PC has a pool of 5 EPT points that allow mutiple EPTs to be equipped at the same time. Can not be multiple copies of same EPTs. (Slots must be purchased as per normal rules at 3 XP each)

For example you could run Predator (3) + Stay on Target (2) or Elusiveness (2) + Lone Wolf (2) + Deadeye (1)  at the same time. 

I think as PCs we don't have anything unique that make us really stand out , granted we can take many mods but that it almost necessary otherwise every mission we would be as fragile as the first (where one bad roll is all it takes) and would die much more often defeating the purpose of the RPG we do get named pilot abilities but as our XP increases I'm sure we would be fighting the named pilots anyway so that isn't special. Allowing double named pilot abilities would be too powerful and then I considered just doubling EPT slots but having Predator, PtL, Outmaneuver, Expose, or Opportunist in any combination be too strong esp. with 3+ attack ships so this evolved to allow each PC to take an expensive 3-4 points generally offensive EPT in addition to cheaper 1-2 generally defensive/supportive EPT(s). The expense of the slots in addition to the EPTs should be a balancing factor ensuring much like the RG title the benefits aren't only frontloaded and require investment. While allowing for greater customization and differentiation from one another as we grow.

3) A-Wing Test Pilot, PS: 2+ only,  Increase your EPT pool to 8 while flying this ship.

For example you could run Push the Limit (3) + Daredevil (3) + Adrenaline Rush (1) + Determination (1) at the time same time

As the RG Title it adjusts to the RPG while keeping the spirit of the old title making the A-Wings masters of EPTs again albeit with a heavy investment.

Well that came out longer than expected so Sean/Guys what do you think?

 

[Daryl C]

Those seem like pretty good ideas.

[S.]

Honestly, I think you are under estimating the true power the group will have later on. A full high PS squad with multiple mods, mixed fleet surgeries, EPT + pilot ability synergies.... The party will be unstoppable.

Being greedy for more EPTs feels so munchkin and defeats the Rpg feel of slowly growing in power. Again, you don't kill a goblin and go up 5 levels, get a full set of +5 gear, and break the Feat rules to allow yourself to wield 3 two handed swords at once.

There will be combinations in this never allowed to occur before, and they will be more than enough to make the PCs shine.

As for the few cards that don't matter mechanically like The Royal Guard title- they still work in the narrative. A royal guard will be an actual Royal guard (or at least viewed as one). It's also not worthless to the actual NPCs as that is still their only way to get 2 mods.

[Tim]

1) as much as I'd like to see the Squint get a buff, I don't think discounts are needed. Patience Padawan, we don't need all our powers to manifest so soon.

2) To me it breaks the RPG-ness to have a pilot that gets modded. EPTs are not sellable and stick to your pilot no matter what ship they fly, right? So not sure it would work. I don't have a problem with a pilot being able to have multiple EPTs, but then that becomes a permanent cost to that pilot.

Other idea: When that astromech that gives an EPT comes up maybe it should stick to the astromech?

3) See #2 for why we maybe need to think about the way EPTs work.

[S.]

You may buy as many EPTs as you want. You can only equip one.

The strategy of planning who takes what together in combination of our pilot abilities and what ships we take will make the party build an interesting facet.

As it is having 6 ish ships all ps 9 or 8+ will be broken enough. I'm even toying with for each ship at ps 7+ after the first, remove 1 EPT. So if 6 of us are ps 7+ there would only be 1 EPT in play. Otherwise will break the balance so much that we'd need 2,3,4x the points against us... And as swarms show- it would be slow and we would die anyway from being pecked to death.

[Timmah!]

I'm going to bounce around a little here, sorry about that, I'm at work but needed to get these thoughts out:

I think you are overly worried about high PS for one very good reason.  In a balanced-point battle, a single player will chose to make sacrifices to win.  In this, nobody wants to die because it is very punishing (Look what happened when I tried to save Frank.  Will I do that again?  Probably not).  If one of us DM'd an academy swarm of equal points to your hypothetical PS9 crew with the intent of taking people out, there would be brand-new pilots in the next match due to unrecoverable deaths.    

Also, for the DnD comparison, hit points get crazy at higher levels (and there are raise dead effects and healing).  In X-Wing, the only analogue will be a team of pie-plates.  We've proven death is real and will only get more punishing as we progress.

I guess the challenge here, as in every game, is how to make sure we don't leave anyone behind.  The fact is, if we are still playing this campaign 15 weeks from now, new players will have to start will more than just an Academy TIE, just like how in DnD a new player usually starts at the beginning of the party's average level.

Now, from an RPG sense, I was struggling yesterday with the limit on EPTs since they feel like Feats.  And why would you forget how to, say, Push the Limit just because you can also now has Veteran Instincts.  But I do understand the concern about how some EPT synergies will just make some pilots overpowered.  

So I'm willing to accept the one-at-a-time limit, even if it is artificial for game play.  We get a lot of bonuses that don't jive with RPG standards as well.  For example: how the hell do SCUM have B-Wings and stealth devices anyway?  Also, the unlimited supply of ships is artificial but in the Pilots' favor, as is the selling a used ship for full-price)  

So in the end, the only thing I worry about balance-wise is the effects of death and on-boarding new players a few months from now.

[S.]

Tim, I think there are few things that we can highlight in your concerns...

Character death is partially in the dice, and mostly in the hands of the DM. I could have used that same setup from last Wednesday at its worse (2-3 turns from the end) and had a very different outcome with some true heroic actions from you guys.
I'm not saying what Chris did was wrong at all, but I'm saying there are options. As lots of the group haven't necessarily DM'd for almost 30 years, there will be learning curves. We need to trust the DM and the DM needs to play out their idea and try not kill everyone.

New players will have to be addressed as you pointed out. They should start behind, but not at an unusable position. What that number looks like will need to be figured out at the time of entry. Probably start at least at the death penalty of the average current player.

As for your thoughts on scaling up and all needing pancakes... I disagree. DMs need to find challenging missions that are not dependent on sheer numbers of opponents and ship strength. In other words the objectives need to evolve, but the resistance does not have to.  At a level 9 party we could have a very hard mission with just a few academy pilots running interference. That is very different from get A to B through an ocean of TIE Defenders.

Lastly: TIME.
We need to build missions for 60min games. Last week was over 2 hours, and no one was dead at 60 min.  Chris could have had a 2 part mission in 30 min blocks- where he overwhelmed us, then we rescued our buds... but we need to watch our time.
What happens when the timer runs out? Alive folk in ships are alive, kill points and any objective points are earned, you gain your ship flight, etc.
We just may not have completed everything. This can be tweaked, thoughts on time call?

[David Rodriguez]

Sean, As for having multiple EPTs I thought you could only have one at a time and any new purchases replaces the old and no longer become a selection those an previous EPT and XP spent is lost.

Tim, you make point I made in the beginning, those who die start off so far behind that they are most likely to die again and push the difference even further unless they get a certain adjustment say maybe a few XP points less the lowest surviving player.

Concerning Time, this is a valid point and my thought would be to stop the clock and any XP earned is kept though objective isn't complete. Also considering how we are still finding our way, and also that more of our party died than survived I'd be on board with stating that the clock was stopped and thus everyone survived, Chris can keeps all his points and anyone with kills can atleast get that Xp or not it doesn't matter to me this is more for the people who died. 

But much like Tie buff I'll probably be called a munchkin for something that won't benefit me :)

A suggestion to all DMs past & future, consider different methods for achieving the objective(s),  I'm all for having objectives that are more than killing targets but that doesn't mean that enemy distruction shouldn't be a way to succeed either, for example this past game the objective was get the pancake to safety, and at first we had a excellent plan and we actually did a great job of destroying the enemy while repairing the ship. There was a brief window where we could have stayed and fought but once it became apparent that no matter how many ships we destroyed, more would keep coming then it just became a mad dash to run in which case it became one sided as we all turned to run against an increasing # of enemies taking shots without return fire, and for those not on the brink why stay and fight when that was not an option to complete the mission and you only risked death.