ooc Character Balance and Brief

[Arklytte]

Pax, I was going through Doc's sheet, dotting T's and crossing I's...or whatever :D, and I realized that, now that you've officially added the Tank Only drawback, I'd forgotten to add that to Doc's Athletics sphere.  Doc's not any more or less athletic than anyone else, but he's a straight up genius behind The Tank's wheel, so I figured it was appropriate. 

 

Anyway, I was looking at a couple talents, and before I pick one, I was wondering about a few things:

1. Does The Tank draw AOO's when it fires La Chancla?
   1. Or any of the smaller guns/launchers/etc
      1. If it does draw AOO's, what is the effect, if any, of talents like Close Combat Specialist or Mobile Striker.  Would The Tank herself need to have them? Or could the Driver/Gunner/Commander have them and they would still work?
2. I notice that Charge isn't listed as a possible action for the Driver. 
   1. Is this an oversight, or is it not possible?  Or is the Ram ability mean to reflect this?
      1. Speaking of Ram, it is a Standard Action. Is it required to do a Move action before Ramming? Or can it be done from a standstill?
   2. If Charging is possible, would the bonus to attack ONLY apply to melee attacks/bull rushes/overruns?  I assume it would, since it wouldn't make sense for it to transfer to the main cannon, but you know what they say about assuming.  😄
      1. And would the AC penalty ONLY apply to the Tank itself, not the people in hatches/on the outside of the tank?
3. Since The Tank has the Brute Sphere, I assume it can do a Shove, in addition to the other listed 'melee' attacks.
   1. If so, I might have to seriously consider swapping a talent or two and get Brute w/Tank Only.  😈
4. Can Barrage be used on the mounted machine guns (since the Driver can fire the fixed forward one)?
   1. What about Sniper?
5. Does The Tank count as a PC for purposes of interacting with talents like War Paint?

That's all I can think of for now. I'm sure I'll probably thing of half a dozen more as soon as I hit Submit.  Once I have the answers to these, I'll figure out what to do with that free talent.  🙂

 

Edited June 21, 2022 by Arklytte (see edit history)

[dalamb]

5 hours ago, Paxon said:

You don't really need any tech talents to run the Engineer position, just good modifiers in Knowledge: Engineering and Craft (mechanical). Characters who have tech sphere just have a nice little add-on with modifications they can bring to the party.

You do to get Craft(Mechanical) skill ranks if you've run out of skill points per level. I'm still puzzling over what to do with those last 4 talents.

[Arklytte]

12 minutes ago, dalamb said:

You do to get Craft(Mechanical) skill ranks if you've run out of skill points per level. I'm still puzzling over what to do with those last 4 talents.

You can never have too make Scout talents, IMO.  Especially if you're mostly going to be in the Commander's slot. 

Inimical Gaze is fun, since it turns your Scout into a Gaze Attack you can make as a Free Action (basically Scout anyone w'in 60' without wasting actions).  Since we're going to be doing even Tank combat at that scale, it's still pretty useful. 

Piercing Eye is great for spotting ambushes. 

2x Somnambulance means you can literally sleep on the job, but still get full ranks in Perception to detect stuff.  😄

Study Technique and Track The Scene are both useful in their own way as well.

 

Or you can expand your Warleader sphere, since, IIRC, that's something you were focusing on.

 

Or even take a Tank Only sphere and drop a couple talents there, again, depending on what else you chose.  If you're looking to get some ranks in Craft(Mechanical), as well as bring something extra to The Tank, but not worry about it outside The Tank, it's a decent option.

Edited June 21, 2022 by Arklytte (see edit history)

[dalamb]

@Arklytteare there any tech talents doc doesn't have that Tanya should consider? E.g. does the cannon have a laser sight? If not, Tanya could take a couple of Tank Focus drawbacks to get Tech sphere and that particular gadget. I took a quick look at Doc's character thread and couldn't quickly find a list of talents.

[M3mentoMori]

Eh. Between Ariane and Martin, there's very, very little from the Tech sphere that cannot be supplied. We can make any (gadget) talent gadget if needed via Jury-Rigging, and have a ton of talents otherwise between the two of us.

[dalamb]

OK. I will leave the Tech sphere alone and work on Scout and Warleader talents.

[Arklytte]

  

3 hours ago, dalamb said:

@Arklytteare there any tech talents doc doesn't have that Tanya should consider? E.g. does the cannon have a laser sight? If not, Tanya could take a couple of Tank Focus drawbacks to get Tech sphere and that particular gadget. I took a quick look at Doc's character thread and couldn't quickly find a list of talents.

 Doc doesn't actually have any Tech talents.  I pretty much went all in on Alchemy, with a smattering of other spheres to support it.  I had considered Scholar|Technician, but there were several others already applying with Technician and/or Blacksmith.  Given how the final team turned out, I'm glad I went the way I did.  I figured, if I was gonna be the Bones of The Tank, I was gonna go all in. 

 

Doc does have Knowledge (Engineering) at +21 and Use Technology @ +15, so he's not a Luddite or anything, but he's definitely not an inventor. 

 

I tend to build on my character sheet, rather than in-thread, that's why there's no list in my character thread. 🙂 For your edification, Doc has talents from Alchemy (several Formula and a couple Toxins), Athletics (Tank Only; Swift Movement and Moving Target, but I need to take one other, probably Sharp Turn, but it will depend on Pax' answers to my list of questions. :)), Barrage (Close Combat Specialist (since his weapon of choice is a shotgun :D, and Mobile Focus), Barroom (Double Chug Baby!!) Scout (All detecting stuff, no Stealth...Doc's NOT sneaky), and Sniper (Reloading Focus was the biggie, plus Steady Shot to negate concealment)

 

I took at least 1 drawback on pretty much everything, for extra talents, and I got several bonus Alchemy talents, so he's got a solid list, but not too crazy.

  

55 minutes ago, dalamb said:

OK. I will leave the Tech sphere alone and work on Scout and Warleader talents.

 FWIW, you could always spend 1 talent on Tech, take the Tank Only drawback, and get two Tech talents.  That would give you your ranks in Craft (Mechanical), so you could be a backup Engineer as needed, and you could take a couple of simple but useful abilities.  Now, granted, I dont actually know the Tech sphere, like, at all, but I assume you can get a bit of use out of it without having to make a huge investment.

 

The other option is you could take a couple of Athletics talents, either for yourself or, again, Tank Only.  That would give us a third driver, in case Martin is covering for someone else and/or Doc is off dealing with wounded.

 

Or, like you said, really dive into Scout and/or Warleader. 🙂

 

Edited June 21, 2022 by Arklytte (see edit history)

[Arklytte]

Apropos of nothing, but, since we're all talking about talents and whatnot, I wanted to bring up something.  Doc has the War Paint formulae, with the following colors:

• Black: +7 Competence Bonus to Stealth

• Blue: +15' Enhancement Bonus to Speed

• Green: Increase duration of Morale bonuses by 2 rounds

• Yellow: +7 Competence Bonus to Perception

Doc will be applying one color to everyone first thing every morning, and it'll last all day (18 hours).  In addition to the basic bonus, it will also give everyone oodles of temp HP to start the day, and also give them an innoculation that will protect them from Doc's alchemical attacks, and allows some of his other healing class features to work on them.  Basically, It's A Good Thing™.  😄

 

However, if there is anyone who still has a trait to spend, there's a trait called Highland Clansman (which I refluffed as Tanker Crew when I took it) that allows you to have two war paints applied at the same time.  Just thought I'd mention it, if anyone was interested.  🙂

Edited June 21, 2022 by Arklytte (see edit history)

[M3mentoMori]

34 minutes ago, Arklytte said:

I tend to build on my character sheet

 

Your sheet is private btw

[Arklytte]

5 minutes ago, M3mentoMori said:

 

Your sheet is private btw

Yep, it is. I keep it that way on purpose, because I'm of the opinion that the nuts and bolts of my character is between me and the DM, and noone else (and the same goes for everyone else...I dont read other player's threads/sheet without their express invitation, and even then, I really prefer not to, since it spoils the fun of discovering stuff IC). Honestly, I'm of the opinion that all character threads should be private, for the same reason.

 

I've had far too many interactions over the years where people will read my mechanics, and react to them during the course of play, rather than what I choose to tell them IC.  It completely spoils my immersion and is extremely irritating.  Even the stuff I'm putting in my IC thread spoilers is too much mechanical info IMO, but since Private tags aren't an option here...:p 

 

All I can do is put them in a spoiler and hope other people will respect that.

[M3mentoMori]

I suppose. I would greatly prefer you read my sheet in its entirety, unless Doc has only recently joined the crew.

Edited June 21, 2022 by M3mentoMori (see edit history)

[Arklytte]

Different strokes for different folks.  🙂

 

Doc's been with the crew for about 5 years. It's one of the reasons I was so thorough with listing out all the info I did in the various spoilers that are in my IC post (which I just posted a bit ago). I figure that's all stuff the rest of the crew would know about him (what his main skills are, his gear, the formulae he normally prepares, etc.  With a long term crew, it makes sense. With new adventurers, not so much.

 

I guess it's mostly just ingrained habit at this point.  🙂

[dalamb]

I'm fairly sure I've had other DMs besides Ark who prefer private applications, for reasons such as avoiding certain problems that can show up, primarily various things that discourage some players from creating the character they want to play because of what other people do. I don't feel the same way but find the reasoning perfectly - well, reasonable.

[Paxon]

6 hours ago, dalamb said:

You do to get Craft(Mechanical) skill ranks if you've run out of skill points per level. I'm still puzzling over what to do with those last 4 talents.

Good point, though I bet you could find other ways to squeeze those skill points in. But base tech sphere gets you 5. Seems like you've mostly decided on this though.

 

I'm also going to throw Gladiator sphere out there for your consideration. It seems a very commander-oriented one. Pick up Self Confidence and Exemplar (boast), and you're restoring the Crew martial focus and giving everyone else best-of-two on attack rolls. With 4 talents to use, there are a few other nice boasts or ways to pull off boasts that are worth considering. With your heavy investment in Warleader, if you're using many shouts then Triumph is a very worthy pickup, so you can shout as swift off a successful attack action rather than needing to spend your standard action on it.

 

6 hours ago, Arklytte said:

Pax, I was going through Doc's sheet, dotting T's and crossing I's...or whatever :D, and I realized that, now that you've officially added the Tank Only drawback, I'd forgotten to add that to Doc's Athletics sphere.  Doc's not any more or less athletic than anyone else, but he's a straight up genius behind The Tank's wheel, so I figured it was appropriate. 

 

Anyway, I was looking at a couple talents, and before I pick one, I was wondering about a few things:

1. Does The Tank draw AOO's when it fires La Chancla?
   1. Or any of the smaller guns/launchers/etc
      1. If it does draw AOO's, what is the effect, if any, of talents like Close Combat Specialist or Mobile Striker.  Would The Tank herself need to have them? Or could the Driver/Gunner/Commander have them and they would still work?
2. I notice that Charge isn't listed as a possible action for the Driver. 
   1. Is this an oversight, or is it not possible?  Or is the Ram ability mean to reflect this?
      1. Speaking of Ram, it is a Standard Action. Is it required to do a Move action before Ramming? Or can it be done from a standstill?
   2. If Charging is possible, would the bonus to attack ONLY apply to melee attacks/bull rushes/overruns?  I assume it would, since it wouldn't make sense for it to transfer to the main cannon, but you know what they say about assuming.  😄
      1. And would the AC penalty ONLY apply to the Tank itself, not the people in hatches/on the outside of the tank?
3. Since The Tank has the Brute Sphere, I assume it can do a Shove, in addition to the other listed 'melee' attacks.
   1. If so, I might have to seriously consider swapping a talent or two and get Brute w/Tank Only.  😈
4. Can Barrage be used on the mounted machine guns (since the Driver can fire the fixed forward one)?
   1. What about Sniper?
5. Does The Tank count as a PC for purposes of interacting with talents like War Paint?

That's all I can think of for now. I'm sure I'll probably thing of half a dozen more as soon as I hit Submit.  Once I have the answers to these, I'll figure out what to do with that free talent.  🙂

 

1: Main Cannon: Yes. Launcher/HookPulley/Top-mounted Weapon: Yes (Probably the person actually firing the top mounted weapon is the one that draws the AOO). Integrated machine-guns: I'm actually going to say no, these don't draw AOOs, for two reasons. One, they are so integrated into the tank structure, there's little practical difference between firing them or not, as opposed to the main cannon and launcher which need to swivel to face their target. Two, the Machine Gun as a technician invention is weirdly not classes as a ranged attack (I mean it kind of makes sense as simply a line effect requiring a ref save), so it doesn't seem to anyway. Either way, these aren't going to draw AOOs, but the other weapon systems will. 

1.1.1: Close Combat Specialist would successfully avoid AOOs, if the PC doing the shooting has the talent. If you give The Crew/Tank the talent, it will affect anyone doing the firing. Mobile Striker is a little tricky because moving the tank and firing the tank generally requires sets of actions from 2 different PCs, and part of what the talent is achieving could be done the same by the driver moving as a move action, holding their standard until after the gunner fires, then moving again after that. I can see a big part of the talent is avoiding the AOO from movement, so certainly if the Driver or Crew/Tank had this talent, I would allow the movement portion to avoid AOOs, and then the Gunner, when they fire, could make the firing point anywhere along the movement. The talent avoids the movement AOO, not the ranged attack AOO. And unfortunately you could not use this talent as the driver to move and fire the Machine Gun as a full round, because the Machine Gun isn't an attack, it's simply a Standard Action effect. 

2. First, I should note that I made these actions before fully reading through the pathfinder vehicle rules. I may make some small adjustments to reflect vehicle rules. But the tank is a weird hybrid case of being both a vehicle and a creature, so custom rules apply anyway. To answer part A of this question though, I intend to the Tank to mostly be able to move like a creature (and for the Driver to have this full suite of movement options, it's harder from the Commander position). So yeah, you can Charge, Run, Withdraw, or heck even take a 5-foot step I suppose, within the normal limitations of 5-foot steps (not if you've performed any other movement). 

2.1.1: Ram is one I may revise slightly. I had envisioned it as basically the tank making a melee attack against something big. As written, it can basically be done from standstill (narratively you would still move a bit, and with a tank, even a little bit will be a lot of weight and momentum). Practically speaking, I figured most times you would need to move in order to ram anyway, but there still is the possibility to ram when you're basically right next to something. However, I think it might make more sense to handle it how the vehicle rules are, which state whenever you move the vehicle so you are touching another creature/object, you do your ramming damage. Stay tuned here, I need to think this through just a touch, and make sure I'm taking into account things like reach, but I think I'll have an update today.

2.2: Yeah, charging bonus only applies to non-ranged attacks 🙂 . The AC penalty applies to the Tank only, not those on/in it. 

3: Yes, the tank can definitely perform the Shove action.

4: No, see above regarding the Machine Guns not being an actual ranged attack. Narratively, they are their own unique, proprietary, very high ROF weapon, and you can't fire them in anything like a controlled semi-auto. Each attack from them probably uses a few hundred projectiles. I might make them descriptively more like mini-guns. However, if you all make a future modifications to the tank and have it include an additional, say, small size cannon with it's reload time greatly reduce, you could probably use the barrage sphere with that. 

5: Oh man, hadn't considered War Paint yet. I suspect there are going to be lots of interesting cases. I mean, it really feels like it would make sense in some ways and not in others. Speed increase is the one I might have the hardest time justifying, and I have a feeling this is going to be turning into a crazy-fast tank in a variety of ways 😉 . Here's what I'll do: yes, warpaint can be applied to the tank. Some of the effects won't be relevant (i.e. it doesn't make perception rolls, so yellow is pointless), but most will. However, anything above Large size takes 2 doses of warpaint. Colossal and above would take 4, though I'm not sure that's ever going to be relevant. You can also use warpaint on Duende's bike. 

[PigLickJF]

54 minutes ago, Paxon said:

You can also use warpaint on Duende's bike. 

Sa-weet! 😆