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Whole order skills and interactivity

Discussion in 'Access Guide to the Human Sphere' started by wuji, Jul 17, 2021.

  1. wuji

    wuji Well-Known Member

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    I think the game loses some flavor by the restrictions imposed with whole order skills and it becomes less of an interactive game forcing players to be strict about what they do instead of something flavorful. To keep the balance and make sure that other units in the game arent paying for skills that I'm proposing everyone be able to do, I suggest a -6 penalty be applied to various things.

    Examples:

    Jump and Climb could become short skills for everyone but without SuperJump or Climbing Plus, a -6 MOD is imposed. BS -6, Dodge - 6, WIP - 6. For something like DTWs I would just make that a PH -6 roll to see if you're fit enough to properly wield your weapon one handedly while leaping or hanging. For these two skills I'd still make it where you cant declare the second move value so theres still always a difference between Superjump/Climbing Plus and their normal alternatives.

    This would prompt players to do a larger variety of things in their games and it might make some skills that arent easily perceived to be directly attributing to combat cheaper.

    For other whole order skills like Inuitive attack, you can use the whole order to negate the -6 or use it as a short skill and accept the negative mod.

    This would also allow for mixed teams to be more viable as well. Instead of hamstringing troops with superjump/climbing plus or the ones without.
     
  2. MattB89

    MattB89 Well-Known Member

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    Interesting idea but I don't think that this is change that is needed. The rules for Climb and Jump are fine as is. All this would do is make models that already have a super high BS such as Avatar, Marut, other TAGS and PANO much stronger because now they would be able to still climb/jump and fire. Even with a -6 to hit, in good range these will still likely be hitting on 12s before cover. TAGs and especially the Avatar and Marut do not need to be stronger.
     
  3. wuji

    wuji Well-Known Member

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    Impose the same measure as TAGs cant go prone, TAGs cant climb or jump and shoot...
     
  4. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    I'd rather see those clunky skills be simplified and useful instead.

    E.g.
    Climb -> Units may no longer hang on to walls. Entire Order. Can climb a wall in a single order that is up to the first MOV value in height, measuring only the vertical surface and straight up or down. Unit is placed touching the edge as closely as possible or touching the Narrow Access Point (window). Can't gain partial cover during this order.
    Climbing Plus -> Optional Automatic. Treats walls as horizontal surfaces (same as ladders). Can gain partial cover.
    Jump -> Entire Order. Moves up to the first MOV value, with the trooper needing to be supported only at the start and end positions and ignoring vertical movements downwards (XCOM style!). Can't gain partial cover during this order. (Yes, this means you can vault during a jump.)
    Super-Jump -> Optional Automatic. Jump is a Short Movement skill. Still can't gain partial cover.
    Shikami renamed Spider-man.

    Footnote:
    Jump skill uses parabolas for the majority of cases which means there's a few edge-cases (no pun intended) where you can use the skill. Here's a few rules of thumb for using N4 Jump;
    1. If there are obstacles you have to use parabolic paths, generally these cost a lot of extra movement distance, the more the closer to the start or end point the obstacles are.
    2. Diagonal movement can only be used if jumping to or from a wall (ladder or Climbing Plus).
    3. If there are no railings, you can jump up or down a single floor provided the floor height is between 2" and 2.5".
    3b. S3+ units have to have 6"+ MOV to do this together with Super-Jump
    3c. S2 units with 6" MOV can do this even if there are railing together with Super-Jump.
    4. Units with Super-Jump can spend Entire Order skill to jump up or down two floors.
    4b. S3+ units with 6-4 MOV and S2 units can do this even if there are railings together with Super-Jump
    5. S2 units with Super-Jump and 6-4 MOV can jump up three floors, most likely regardless if there are railings or not.
    6. You can not end in base contact with anything on the inside of the parabola.
    6b. As a rule of thumb, I'd say your lowest of start or finish spot need to be half a base clear of the wall when jumping up or down respectively.

    Other than this, the skill doesn't work as advertised. It's fairly safe to forget it exists for units without Super-Jump, IMO.
    Basically, our previous arguments about the usefulness of the Super-Jump skill are dated because we were calculating the max jump height using straight angles. Super-Jump is actually a lot worse.
     
    Barrogh likes this.
  5. wuji

    wuji Well-Known Member

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    In your suggested changes, the only difference I could tell was climbing plus would get cover, which I agree with (Some N4 changes really make me question CB). The old way of measuring a strait line to jump and then fall strait down gave more distance travelled and could be explained by abstraction as much of the game is.
     
  6. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    Not really the same at all. My suggestion kept them Entire Order and didn't introduce MODs, which I find to be an unnecessary complication.
     
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  7. wuji

    wuji Well-Known Member

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    No I didnt say the same as my suggestion but the same as current. Only difference is troops cant hang between orders and likewise no more random hanging corpses... but then that means people will only ever climb or jump when it's absolutely safe, there's no fun in that. Think about the movie Enemy At The Gates. Jude Law jumps the gap fast enough (Dodge) but Ron Pearlman's old vet was a bit too slow (Dodge -6) and the bad luck of jumping last... it makes sense and allows for more interactivity in the game.

    Imagine Pupniks, RiotGrrls fairing even odds or so even after the penalty on a jump. Likewise a Knight Powering his way up a wall. If he takes multiple AROs he can dodge on 8. If just one he could shoot on 8. You're right it would be OP for TAGs and that's why we wont let that happen but everything else it would work great and wouldnt be OP. Even for Achilles, he's either hard to hit with easier armor or easier to hit with heavy armor and he'd still be rolling under 10 after range and cover most of the time but it'd still look hella heroic. And this, Dog Warriors and Wulvers will have a little more mobility options, it's not crazy but it would make them seem more like powerful werewolves that we think of instead of it making no sense why this huge muscular thing with claws on both feet and opposable thumbs on both hands is not at least semi adept at climbing while if it ever has kids its kids are really adept at climbing but have lost all athleticism to shoot their weapons mid air like their mom/dad... Likewise for Haqqislam's Super Soldiers, Captain Islam Wouldnt only be able to leap like Captain America but he would be able to hold onto a wall one handed like a Hellicoptor or like Bucky sliding down the building... Every faction would benefit from this in some way and we can still keep TAGs from being OP like you said. Edit (for JSA, the other Oniwaban but also Ninjas could do more, their BS and PH ain't great but they could leap from 1 story above down to the ground into silhouette contact and afford the -6 penalty. They could more effectively do a sacrifice play. If an uber hacker can run and hack while being shot at, they should be able to hack just slightly less effectively while hanging on a wall. I really feel the game gets way better with these changes).

    In ARO I'd allow for the -6 penalty to actions but for Dodge I'd make it where you can't dodge up without climbing plus, only side ways or down but at half speed and the jump dodging without super jump wouldnt be allowed. In real life, people obviously dont run around jumping up and down to dodge fire like in HALO, we dive out of the way. People would have alot of fun being able to do all this and their tactics would be braver knowing there is a chance they could survive. This is obviously different from say an Olympic level gymnast dodging with a flip or a Ninja Turtle...

    One last thing, this would mitigate troops from playing keep away from CC oriented troops by being high enough on a wall that they can't reach them and it would mitigate the advantage the camo tokens on roof tops have as well as dealing with camo tokens on the ground with more versatility.
     
    #7 wuji, Jul 18, 2021
    Last edited: Jul 18, 2021
  8. Delta57Dash

    Delta57Dash Well-Known Member

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    He also changed jump to not count any downwards distance, which would make it an actually useful skill (and make Super-Jump work again).
     
  9. wuji

    wuji Well-Known Member

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    Ahh, I missed that, thank you, so a bit more like the old rule. And yeah I suggested allow falling as well. No damage, even to those without super jump.
     
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