Well, barring the odd moments of rounding, CB's points system is consistent between factions. Yes, really. Been that way since 2006, in fact. Was a lot easier to reverse-engineer then, though. On that note, however, CB has politely asked us to not share any complete reverse-engineered points systems. Also allows players from different languages to talk at the table. I wouldn't mind getting in on the translation project/discussion, but my Japanese sucks rocks these days. I need to get my ass back in gear, grind back through the Genki books. And then find some help to translate Abe no Seimei's book on Onmyou (yes, I have a copy in Japanese. set me back like 20,000yen! And the book has never been translated into English, so gotta do it the hard way)
The old Pheasant wasn't consistent with anything... and I have my doubts regarding the current CA TR REMs, but lack sufficient data.
I don't have specific complaints just general complaints. Not sure if its been said in this thread but I'll say it again: Higher numbered interations of rules need to be consistent with what they're effecting and they need to be either better or worse consistently (better makes sense). So as an example, each level of martial arts doing something different is confusing and annoying. As for the consistency thing, GENERALLY, L2 of a skill is better than L1 (martial arts retardation aside) but there are odd situations when L1 is preferable. I'm struggling to think of the specific thing right now but I think there's two rules where L1 is better than L2 - really can't remember where though... Also, hacking could be simplified much further given there's largely no reason to take DHDs and most people won't use the full suite of programs available anyway given the concensus is usually "just use redrum'.
There were several 2nd edition units with weird costs or obvious errors, but it was a limited handful and they were pretty well known. Amusingly, the old Pheasant's weird price was frequently used to argue that a monofilament CCW had an unreasonably high point cost.
Well, crud, in N2 Chain of Command cost 7 points alone (as per the N2 Kempeitai). IIRC we'd broken things down to suggest that a monoCCW was ~6 points.
Yes to both, but even accounting for the price of MonoCCW, the N3 Pheasant had a gaping hole of 5 to 7 points that we couldn't trace to equipment (depending on how expensive MonoCCW was considered). HSN3 fixed this (but they're still kind of overpriced to be used for CoC backfield support).
Because they are not CoC backfield supports. They lead from the front. It is the way to exploit their equip/skills. It is risky? Yes. Are they worth this role? Maybe. It depend on the rest of the list.
Iirc Protheion is much better balanced than MA in terms of what you get and when. MA3 is the best MA in most cases (it's the same as Protheion 5) unless you are wildly better at CC than the other guy or you have surprise attack. Hacking suffers from rules bloat worse than anything else in the game, IMO. Either hacking devices should have levels or half the hacking programs in the game should be removed.
In all honesty, as much as I liked N3 when it dropped, and as much as it is still my favourite incarnation of the game overall I feel like CB really missed their opportunity to trim the fat and properly streamline it when they switched editions. Where most editions are used to clean house an reduce bloat to allow for more growth, it felt like absolutely zero pruning happened between 2nd Edition and N3 which has led us down the exact same path of book releases and rampant bloat that led to us needing a new edition in the first place. It doesn't help that CB still love designing new special skills instead of using ones they've already made that could share the same purpose. Worse, there are still a ton of over-complex skills and equipment with their information spread over entire books. While I applaud them for embracing a more living structure for the rules later in N3's life, the fact that N3 didn't really do much to streamline 2nd means we're again reaching critical mass in terms of special rules and profiles and it feels like we'll be needing N4 by the end of next year. So needless to say, I have a laundry list of changes I'd love to see come a new edition. But if I had to pick just one high-impact change that would solve a myriad of issues I have with the game, then I'd pick my simplest request. Reduce the severity of the critical hits mechanics. Either reduce it to simply auto-winning the roll, or reduce the auto-defeat armour to a +4 damage instead. I'd prefer the former, but the latter would at least make armour/BTS more meaningful stats. It wouldn't outright fix issues with the action economy, egregious use of "discount" options to create above-the-bar efficiency in units (especially newer ones), the relative power of fire teams, high-burst crit-fishing, or things like special rule bloat, the fucked nature of hacking in its current state or the fact that close combat is still overcosted on any unit where it isn't a primary focus. But it would bring some level of parity between efficiently costed light troops and their tougher elite counterparts without having to do anything drastic like gutting the order pool system (although I'd like a new edition to have a long, hard look at the knock-on effects of encouraging action-heavy lists and the lack of verisimilitude in the way order pools are currently handled). Fixing crits would be easy enough to run public tests on and implement now which means it is something I'd like to see them actually give a shot. Well, that and pre-measuring (and I say the latter as someone who played artillery-heavy dwarfs in Oldhammer, I can accurately place ranges to within less than a couple of inches by eye alone; this skill shouldn't be a factor in whether someone is a good commander, it is simply gamey meta-knowledge bullshit that adds nothing to the game).
I'm pretty sure the N3 interim PDF cost was someone running the numbers, being shocked at what the discrepancy was, and putting in something halfway in between until a full unit review could happen (in HSN3).
@Durandal - I was also a bit disappointed; the N3 core book removed several redundant/niche skills, but then in HSN3 they didn't get rid of any cruft at all. For example, N3 dropped things like Coma and Braces, but in HSN3 we got new rules for stuff like Biolocator.
CB frequently undervalues options that grant an inordinate amount of safety, such as symbiomates and CoC. They think that everyone is content living dangerously with their lieutenant, when it's a sucker's game.
Damnfool place for both your LT and back to be... You don't need a Chain of Command unless you are putting your LT in harm's way. And you shouldn't be putting your Chain of Command into just-as-obvious danger.
Since CoC is roughly speaking the second most expensive ability in the game, beaten only by MSV3, could you elaborate on the specific issue of CoC? And on a model with only offensive abilities, only ARM 2 to protect it, and that loves being in fireteams where they can't make use of the LT order they might get.
Admittedly, the Pheasant wasn't helped by being in the same faction as the Kempeitai, which had just enough gear to ruin the day of a backfield LT assassin, but was otherwise intended to hide in back, and was massively cheaper.
Not sure I ever viewed them as such since the Kempeitai was dead-weight in vanilla and only had CoC in JSA where Pheasants weren't. Simply put, lifting CoC from the Pheasant and placing it on a unit more appropriately equipped for the role would be a massive boon for vanilla diversity. For ISS the analysis is more interesting since in terms of performance the uncommon Bao link would get that much cheaper, but it'd also lose its single Specialist thereby reducing utility. But... err... maybe better in the Future of Yu Jing thread? -- The thing is, from memory I can name 5 CoC units. Kempeitai - cheap CoC with defensive link team utility in faction with Rambo LTs. Kaeltar - cheap CoC with defensive utility that is so good as to be mandatory includes and oft-argued game breaking Myrmidon Officer - expensive CoC with tri-helix of defensive abilities in smoke grenades, ODD and NWI as well as criminally high discount from Frenzy Kirpal Singh - expensive CoC without defensive abilities on a frame that basically starts on the enemy side of the battlefield Pheasant - expensive CoC without defensive abilities on a frame that wants to go to the enemy side of the battlefield (I also saw the Taquel, but I haven't analysed this one) We have two that are basically mandatory includes, one that I am frequently surprised I don't see more often, the Pheasant that I seldom see taken for CoC, and Kirpal who is a chapter in and of itself in unfortunate design. What I'm saying is that there isn't a pattern of CoC being particularly cheap or granting an inordinate amount of safety, but rather there seems to be roughly half of them having good unit design and half of them having bad unit design (with the Myrm Officer leaving me wondering what bad stuff I'm not seeing) Going one step further, considering the cost of CoC and the fact that most of these units are kind of one-offs, I'd argue that if it was at all possible to choose, having your entire army be Veteran L1 is actually cheaper and more effective than bringing a CoC model (unless you have use for SymbioMates or No2)
Chain of Command is very strong and should not always be on a profile which is 100% efficient at using it. Incidentally I consider the Pheasant an excellent troop. If I could take it in any faction I played, I was regularly would.
Well, what I mean is that, when the Kempeitai and Pheasant were introduced to the game, you had the dirt-cheap Kempeitai, the very expensive Pheasant, the in-the-middle Hassassin Farzan, and the expensive Kirpal Singh with CoC. Most people thought the Farzan was an auto-include, as was the Kempeitai. The Pheasant and Kirpal are very situational. A Pheasant has a lot of useful things, but they don't synergize very well, same for Kirpal. The Pheasant in particular was penalized by having a model that showed what a good-synergy CoC loadout was.
Treat the Pheasant more as an active and aggressive specialist that can take over from the LT in a pinch, not as a security blanket. Thats why CoC is a specialist skill in the first place. Don't forget its also useful for Kidnapping, too. Anyway... something I'd like to see is some ITS modifications for longer tournament games - or, hell, shorter ones. 2 turn "Lightning Round" games, 4 turn "slow and steady" games, that sort of thing.
