Quick comment on character building.  Its a house brew system, so i designed it so i have more than an inkling on how it was meant to be used.  The short answer is, there is no 'best' way.  It was designed to be fair, which is why a point buying system is used.  It was designed to be simple, which is why there are only three abilities, and you are limited to at handful of options slots to define your character.

It actually started out, much simplier.  It's current form is developed from the evolution of three campaigns.

You can think of ability scores as raw talent.  Natural reflexes that a character was born with... or mental brillance to apply to a variety of task.

Options can be thought of as a focus of attention to learn a task.  You may not have the raw natural reflexes, but you make up for it with raw talent in a field that appeals to your character.  They have a knack for working the numbers to get missiles to lock and fire, they have a talent to lead or for tactics... whatever.

Specialties are the reflection of special talents that the character has developed in their choosen fields.  Evidence of their exceptional ability in their ability to do things that raw talent (ability) will never be able to do.  The possibility to hit farther with a weapon, to lead larger units... or organize and maintain better units... whatever.

So while the numbers may look the same in the end, how you got there will be different.

ie.
A character might have a natural gunnery of 4 by spending 200 xp on Accuracy.

or

They might have a natural gunnery of 6, but with missiles, they're a gunnery of 4.  Not as overall good as a base gunnery of 4, but it only cost 125xp, and for the savings of 75xp to be spent elsewhere, piloting a missile boat like a Commando, where only one medium laser suffers... the savings are worth while.

I will post 'stuff' on this campaign as i get to it, but if new players want to browse the old campaign threads, they can be found here...

link to another game

Going to change from a Infantry commander to the last Cavalry slot.

just making it an official public announcement that the cavalry company is full now.

Just a heads up for everyone...

With me shifting character roles my name is going to change to Einar Alfhildr.  I'll be the guy in charge of the Mech complement.  We needed a leader type so I'll get to do it.  If I had the cash to do the C3 as well I would have but there just isn't enough fundage for me to fill that many roles.

Going to work out a unit commander thread.

I've been mostly trying to appoint players from old campaigns, since they know what's to be expected and will make things move about easier.  (I'm all about moving things about easier)

Newer players should not take this as a slight, everyone is new at least once to me, and i'm hoping that will change quickly in the near future to where you'll be old veterans welcoming new players to the campaign.

Command thread is pretty much where mission task are presented and players decide who goes to do what.

New campaign, so I'm still working out how things will work.

---

Tentative command positions...

Mech Company.

Kapten    ~ (R4) Einar Alfildr
Löjtnant  ~ (R?) (tba)
Löjtnant  ~ (R?) (tba)

Conventional Support
Cavalry Company
Kapten    ~ (R3) Svetlana Gunnardottir

Air Cavalry Company
?         ~ (R?) Akarian

Infantry Company
?         ~ (R?) Anton Shrike
This message was last edited by the GM at 14:52, Tue 08 Mar 2016.

Call this Karma, no sooner has the Infantry position been vacated, and a new players has shown to take over her slot.

Really... i'm surprised by the interest in playing conventional units in this campaign.

o.O

Please welcome James Stirling our new Infantry player
This message was last edited by the GM at 14:45, Tue 08 Mar 2016.

Remember Kitten as much as you have made this about Battletech and the mechs you also have a knack for taking what could be normal foot slogging infantry and transforming them into missions that look more like Spec Ops raids on their own supporting the main force in a different fashion.

Besides when it eventually rolls around to Clans the mechs won't waste their time shooting at infantry unless they are crawling on them.  That's for the Elementals to deal with.

It's almost... ALMOST... incentive to bring back Kitty Troopers, but im looking at the bookkeeping on that and it's not going to happen till things get oiled and moving along by themselves for the main campaign.

yes.  Infantry will have a role.  Aside from their platoon of infantry, they'll also have access to lighter 5 ton conventionals like AMCs, APCs and Ferrets, which while light... can still contribute to combat.

Game plan is to get a few character finalized everytday, Done Today...

(7) Characters ~ Finalized
Einar
Illiyana

Olaf

Rymin

Svetlana
Teri
Mikael


(0) Characters ~ To Do



(6) Characters ~ Waiting for Player Paperwork
Anton ~ Infantry
Argile ~ Mech ?
David ~ C3
Galen ~ Command Wolfhound
James ~ Infantry
Katrin ~ VTOL

---

At this rate, will be ready for start of mission by weekend... maybe (crosses fingers)
This message was last edited by the GM at 22:42, Wed 09 Mar 2016.

Curious. I am wondering in this time of mech war machines, what role the tanks will mainly play?. I can see point refusal and infantry support for assault's against fortified buildings or towns, but in honesty i have trouble seeing them used against the same mechs in a open meeting

Updated after review. Thoughts? I want to go more to the tough/spec ops route for 2nd Platoon. Someone the glory boys in the walkers can call when they need help. Very mobile and versatile force.

2nd Kavaller ~ 325th Infantry Company ~ 2nd Platoon
Unit Nickname: The Warbirds
Platoon Commander- Anton Shrike (Rank 4 = 4,000)
     200xp  Abilities- 50xp Accuracy(2) 6+
                       50xp Physical(2) 6+
                       100xp  Mental(3) 5+

     150xp      Perks- 25xp Toughness
                       25xp X-Train Aero
                       75xp Leadership(2)
                       25xp Edge(1)

Platoon Reserves: 6,125cb, (1) ton of Bombard, and (1) ton of Hawkeye LRM
Veteran Squad 1(Line)- Engineers, Armory
      Experience- 8,750cb
Veteran Squad 2(Line)- TAG, Laser Spotter, MG
      Experience- 8,750cb
Regular Squad 3(Line)- Scouts, Rifle
      Experience- 4,375cb
Green Squad 4(Support)- Flamer

You've played my campaign enough to know that conventional units dont suck.  Especially enmasse they can be rather formidable.  If you cant see their place in the scope of the campaign, youre free to change into a mech slot, plenty of room in the mech company.

Numbers look fine to me, but i would look harder at the bottomline of upgrading the units.   Right now you buy, you get, later on your buy, you have to roll for availability.  Veteran troops are fine, but if you aspire to having elites anytime soon, now is the time to buy them.

Out for Doc appointment will be back later this afternoon to reply to people if they have/had asked questions.

While this campaign may be somewhat different the question about using conventional units (ie non mechs) in the battletech setting is also valid in the general sense.

Tanks tend to be considerably cheaper than mechs ton for ton and technically use the same weapons and armor so they actually tend to have more firepower per Cbil cost than mechs and be tougher in a stand up fight.  Movement tends to be the downfall of tanks as they are slow, and suffer significantly from any type of complicated terrain but for open fields, cities, roads, and even light forests they should be at least competent.

Infantry vs Mechs is always a hard sell, but sometimes you have 200,000 people per mech in a city so tossing anti mech training into the mix such that 200 people working together in a coordinated manner with some rather inexpensive gear can ruin one or more mechs starts to feel like a viable option.  The math is still bad in terms of lives lost but if it's what you have then it's what you use.

Used together as a combined arms unit with Tanks to hold the line, Infantry to scout and disrupt, and Mechs to do the fancy footwork and rapid assaults the whole thing tends to work out a lot better than simply tossing a dozen mechs down on a planet and expecting them to always win.

Another draw back for tanks, is that they take motive damage, and can be taken out of the fight while still having plenty of armor.


Infantry's role is heavily specialized.  Yes the mech warrior might think he can scoff at that squad of seven infantry till they whip out the laser TAG and spots them for the incoming artillary fire.  The fact that they're overlooked lets them pass more often unmolested to get to a target and maybe take it out, where the mission might be a static location like a command post.  Infantry's role was already outlined in the infantry thread to help them out.

Reminder, if youre done with your character sheet and ready for me to audit it, post it on this link.

link to a message in this game


Till i see it here, i presume youre in the think think, talk talk, twink, twink phase.

Except for Olaf I've updated the units submitted and have been adding them to the first mission which should start soon.

Units that arent submitted by the weekend are presumed to be in for 'extensive' repairs and will start Mission Two.  (Around a one month wait historically)

Campaign rule change thought...

You know.  It's been on the rules this way for so long... it's almost engraved in stone, but Veteran players know that i'm infamous for twinking rules.


So... I was sitting here looking at Katrin's  archetype build, and she had a Fourth Option slot picked out, which ... is wrong because Archetypes only have three, plus Edge.


So... I was thinking, why does it have to be this way?

Certainly we cant let you have piles and piles of options, because, that would be just all sorts of broken.

So i was thinking, what if... instead of limiting how many options you can have, we limit how many option points you can spend.


So here's the proposed thought.

Instead of being limited to Edge and (3) Option slots {for most archetypes}

what if we went... Edge and Option points (Option Points = Option slots x2, which is the maximum number of option points the archetype can spend.)

So a seasoned mechwarrior could get up to a 2 in edge, and 6 points of other options.  He can spend up to level two in an option or buy several up only to level 1.

XP cost does not change, and all current builds are legal, but if you only wanted one level in something, you could opt to get another level in something else too.

At first glance, i dont see this as broken.  Anyone else have thoughts on this?

This is a notable campaign rule so i want player thoughts on this, particular the veteran ones who have been messing with this fora while now.
This message was last edited by the GM at 01:15, Thu 10 Mar 2016.

So I could be a wunderkid with...

Energy 1 (2 slots)
Ballistics 1 (1 slot)
Missile 1 (1 slot)
X/Y/Z Mech Spec 1 (1 slot)
Physical Combat 1 (1 slot)

And have d7 with all weapons and give me access to extreme ranges for all of them, piloting the mech size I'm in and a bonus to putting my fist in your face or foot on your throat.  For the low, low cost of...

150xp

And then tossing 100xp into Gunnery and Physical to round out my peep with 5+ base numbers except for Mental issues using any of the 350xp base archetypes.

---

And would this change Lyran Mentality to only having 2 points to play with?

Or the Bug Warrior changing to have access to 8 points to play with?

Or the xp limits...though that's more nebulous since it'll take somewhere around 25 missions before we start getting closer to your limits at current design...

You could.

Youre spending 100xp to increase all the weapon skills to d7, which is around a +1 imho.

You could also spend 75 xp to specialize in three different specs, but only one would ever apply a higher physical would work better imho.

If you over diversify like that you get nothing.

We could compromise it, maybe cap the points spend and increase the slots by one.

So you would have a max of six points to spend over 4 slots, you could develop half to 2 and half to 1, or 3 to 2.

No, I know there are jacks of all trades out there that having that diversity would be great.

A noble, leadership, tactics at 1 each would cover a solid backing of potential command skill while still allowing a dip into energy or speccing twice over in ballistics or missiles.  It'll be a rare concept that takes six at one.  Four at one and one at two, or two at one and two at two will be far more frequently used I would imagine.

I'm just talking out loud to see what bounces and what sticks.
This message was last edited by the player at 04:26, Thu 10 Mar 2016.

Yeah it would be interesting to say the least.

I actually like this thought, but i'm not ready to take it out for a ride yet, i'm going to mix it in with the wiki, and after mission 3 when we have our 'break' for upkeep phase, I usually allow new players a mulligan, so i think that will be a good time to think it over more and shake it down.

besides, i have over half the unit finalized and ready to go, i dont want to muck that up and start at square one over this.

So... it's something to look at in the future, but wont be in use just now.

(*shakes mail box*)

No new submissions...

I have unofficial paperwork in from Kat, Anton and Galen.  will focus on getting those characters finalized today, hope more peeps get me their characters?
This message was last edited by the GM at 13:46, Thu 10 Mar 2016.

I put mine in player submissions.

Consider mine submitted. On phone now, if new rules are approved only change is tinker 0 for last option.