The Glass Jaw Ninja only matters if you are actually a glass jawed ninja. That means you have a fantastically high dodge and low toughness + no armour.
Examples are:
* Nile empire with super skill dodge and a powerloss if wears armour
* Elven Monk with lots of points in 'extra dodge'.
I am not really aware that any of us are particularly glass jawed. Perhaps we aren't wearing armour, but this is our first mission... so we are inexperienced. Part of the problem with glass jawed ninja is the inability to wear armour
FN Jammer
is perhaps the single best tech 26 gun in the game that doesn't require a truck/super strength to carry it. It requires a ranged reality contridiction with one on many penalties. Pierre has a spell that the game designers have never seen so when the game designers came up with the rules and the balancing they couldn't take into account home brew spells that destroy that balance
Let's look at what would have happened if we were using the game as the game designers and most importantly the scenario designers had intended
Step 1: reality contradiction
* Means damage is 2 less and the defence is 4 less
* Means that Pierre would have to take damage of 25 - reality skill.
Example: Assume a decent reality skill of 13
Die roll | Reality skill | Damage |
---|
1 | 1 | 24 => So dead that they are dead dead dead |
5 | 8 | 17 => 3 wnd K 7 |
11 | 13 | 12 => Wkd K 6 |
16 | 16 | 9 => K 3 |
Looking at this table I think we can deduce that the game designers felt the use of the fn jammer in any reality other the Cyberpapacy would not happen often.
The impact of the spell is to reduce the damage taken from the ranged contradiction check by about a wound on average)
Step 2: To hit
Assuming a base skill of 21 (which is quite high by the way)
The game/scenario designers assume the one on many modifiers. So they give their monsters attributes in line with that.
Pierre is doing 5 things: reality contradiction + 4 to hits. So his effect skill (for the scenario designers perspective)
Assuming bad guys are hit on a 10
first opponent: 17 so needs a five to hit
Second/third opponent: 15 so needs a five to hit
Fourth/Fivth opponent: 13 so needs a seven to hit
That's with a fantastic to hit of 21. If we look at most players the tohit is probably closer to 15. That means the game/scenario designers are expecting us not to do so much one to many. With a 15 skill (top end of all the published characters) we need to roll high die (1/4 times?) to hit so many targets
With the new spell, a 2 hits all of them.
Assuming average die, the results points from the perspective of the game designers would be
first opponent: 7
second opponent: 5
third opponent: 3
However the actual result points are 11 on average die. Which means by the way on average die with the glass jawed ninja rules, the gun is doing 11 more points of damage. I don't think the game/scenario designers planned for weapons to be doing 11 more points of damage. The FN Jammer has just gone from base damage 23 (enormously high) to base damage 34. And it's about to get higher too
Damage
The one on many modifers for the five actions cause +4 toughness.
Thus from the scenario designers perspective assuming the normal damage rules.
Let's assume a toughness of 8 and an armour (which is pierced by the tech 26 gun) of 10
The base damage of 23 is reduced 19.
On average die that is 9 points of damage. which is a wound K 5
Let's look at the combination of house rules and house spells that we have done. We have lifted the damage on average die from 'wound K 5' to 'fertilizer'.
Let's also remember that in order to do so amazingly well (wound K 5 on four opponents) there is the required reality contradiction check which on a die roll of 1 using normal rules kills the user of the gun.
So the earlier 'the fn jammer has gone from damage 23 to damage 34' was wrong. It's actually gone 'from damage 23 to damage 38' when used against four opponents.
I think we can safely say the game/scenario designers did not expect this combination of house rules, and the adding of 15 points of damage to the best hand portable weapon in the game
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Let's just summarise at the impact of the glass jawed ninja rule, combined with the elimination of one on many penalties.
With normal rules as per scenario designers understanding of how the game works, we are doing wound K 5
If we do result points of damage... then we are adding about 15 points or more of damage.
Let's suppose that one of us is the target, and without this rule we were going to take 5 points of damage. That's on O2. An O2 is a scratch... it's not even a flesh wound. With this rule we are adding perhaps another 15 points of damage so that's 20 points of damage. All of a sudden that is 'instant death'.
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GMs options.
The scenario is not written with the assumption that a single one of us can turn four reasonably tough opponents into fertilizer in one combat round on average die. The combination of 'no one on many penalities' and 'result points based damage' have added 15 points of damage to the gun. It's gone from base damage 23 to base damage 38.
It's also written with the assumption that if you use a tech 26 gun you will probably do yourself significant harm and have to burn through possibilitys (xp in the original game) at a fast rate. And that even if you do, you will take two rounds (probably) to defeat the opponents
This means that the GM has to either let us walk through the scenario without breaking into a sweat or make the opponents significantly tougher / significantly more numerous.
My conclusions
* Personally I don't like the idea of a scratch being turned into dead as a side effect of adding a rule that helps an archetype that we don't have in the game.
* I think we can see the enormous impact of the home brew spell. I originally liked it, until I've seen just how game impacting it is. Especially given that it effects everyone
* Most importantly the scenario is not written with the assumption that a single person can turn four opponents to fertilizer in one combat round. It's not written with the assumption that we have a damage 38 weapon
This message was last edited by the player at 06:28, Sat 18 July 2020.