NWI + Bio/Shock Immunity on every new profile. (Hyperbole) Proliferation of 4-4 Move MI. Proliferation of Stealth on hackable targets. Admittedly these are mostly bandaids to underlying issues (widespread availability of Shock, primacy of order efficiency as a game design consideration, proliferation of jammers and lack of appropriate compensation for being hackable). But the result is that it starts to feel that the core interaction (IE. Shock kills NWI dead) is the exception rather than the rule (see the "is it worth playing SP anymore?" thread).
Speaking of guts, I always thought Guts was far too beneficial for the one who failed it, how about something along these lines?: Failing a guts roll causes Stun effect, and trooper will move towards closest improved cover if none is close enough.
Stun is stupidly powerful. Particularly since this would allow you to Stun active turn pieces that fluff their attack. There's no engineering your way out of that either. My view on guts is that it's supposed to be mostly beneficial. Forcing your opponent to spend the orders to clear a lane, but preserving the Trooper you had overwatching it is a great outcome. It's one of the minor buffs to the Reactive Turn that are built in to prevent the active being too powerful. This is why Religious is a discount. You're also now applying another effect that circumvents ARM and BTS, something that I'm generally opposed to. Take Targetted: to balance that effect avoiding ARM/BTS it takes a significant hit in the ability to get it to stick in the first place. I'd much prefer to see Targetted have to pass BTS but have a higher chance of winning FTFs such that vs BTS3 it has roughly the same chance to succeed as now. (This would have the benefit of reducing the risk an FO faces trying to get it off). I think that to apply a Wound or Status affect you should need to bypass ARM or BTS. (Adhesive as a true exception to that general principle feels appropriate.)
Would be interesting to apply BTS as a shield against Sensor/Sat-Lock attempts and FO, give more value to the stat. Problem is FO is still completely rubbish against anything you'd actually want the BS mod against because you have to shoot through all the enemy's negative mods to land it in the first place, and a Swiss for example passing BTS half the time makes it even worse. Not to mention Fire ammo gets a lot worse at countering visual mods, in the exact same way it got worse at countering Tohaa. Generally, all the status effects that don't require an ARM/BTS roll right now are either ridiculously inefficient, Electric Pulse, or involve Sensor.
I would say that Religious is mostly neutral in price. I haven't reliably pinned a cost down and some units where I thought it was a discount turned out to be a miscalculation on my part. In either case. Yes, though I certainly don't agree that it's bypassing ARM/BTS. This is psychological damage, historically the primary decider of combat ever since humans invented community sponsored violence. The entire point of a miniature fluffing their roll, taking a hit, surviving and getting unnerved would be that they can no longer keep attacking this turn. As the rule currently stand, I'm not certain Guts is worth the trouble nor time and I honestly think it has a negative impact on tactics. It is routinely forgotten and typically used tactically to improve your position - and that's what happens when a trooper shits their pants and dives for cover. I mean, I won that FTF, but can I please fail guts, too? Diving for cover and maintaining your cool to keep shooting should be reserved for the trooper who passes their WIP. Only issue is how Willpower is typically not scaled to cost or competency the way ARM or BS tends to be, which is also a contributing factor to keeping trash-spam lists relevant. That and maybe Stunned (or equivalent effect) shouldn't impose negative MODs -- Or just to elaborate on my line of thinking: Guts roll, if you fail you get Stunned and the movement is mandatory, if you succeed you don't get stunned and the movement is optional. Religious needs to pass Guts roll to be allowed to make the movement. Both Religious and Valourous troops are immune to the stun effect. Stun ammo no longer causes Guts rolls. * Move 2" to get out of the area of effect, failing that; * Move 2" to improve cover level, failing that; * Move 2" towards the closest improved cover in the direction of your deployment zone's table edge, and failing that; * Go prone
I'd actually only have Stunned apply a stackable -3 to any action and not outright stop attacks. If you were going that route I mean. I think that there's a lot of interesting room for soft debuffs. It's why I like the idea of Targetted in ARO: it doesn't prevent you using that trooper anymore, but it increases the risk. It also is a nerf to classic flashpulse spam AROs. They're still useful but not nearly as reliable as they are now. I'm not sure this is a good thing, but it'd be a thing.
If you wanted to add the stun effect to Gut Rolls, failing a Gut Roll should be: Get out of LoF / Danger zone - If not possible, get to Partial Cover - If tot possible, go Prone and Stun
I'm mostly after a temporary effect for cowards (and by cowards, I mean "nominally sane people"). I think the soft-cap of imposing a MOD on all skills that inane.imp suggested is an elegant solution that doesn't completely neuter the soldier. Also somewhat related I always found it interesting how Infinity has troopers go prone as an instinct when most often you don't have the terrain features aligned in such a way that it effectively has no consequence.
As we see more and more the way impetuous creates difficult situations to resolve, the more I am convinced it needs to be nuked. Implementing a sort of artificial intelligence type of movement that the player needs to execute based on a long list of parameters and exclusions is not turning out great, as much as I enjoy how thematic it is. If it were up to me, I would lean heavily into trying the skill into things similar to not allowing them the benefits of partial cover. If a trooper's impetuousness needs to be represented, tying it to not allowing them to ARO with Dodge,
Lol. It's actually really simple in practice. The biggest issue is that people are OK with the idea of their troops dying to enemy gunfire but not to suicide: suicidally brave = cool, suicidally stupid = very not cool. But arguably they're priced on the assumption that they're suicidally stupid. The second issue is that the way Superjump is written has always caused issues (see the Seraph's Auxbot). It's basically not an issue with Impetuous but rather a long standing issue with Superjump (in that unlike Climbing+ it isn't just an alternative way of performing Move). My POV is the better option isn't to force Impetuous troopers to act in suicidally stupid ways, but rather to price them appropriately for the way people enjoy playing them. For the record, I think the current implementation of Impetuous movement balances these concerns. It just could be written more explicitly.
On the topic of weird issues with movement, changing Climb to allow free movement along all surfaces in the same way as vertical ones would make it a lot more useable for non-Climbing+ units. It's always very frustrating spending an entire order on Move-Idle to cross a centimetre-wide gap so your troop can Climb a wall, or another whole Climb to get only to the top of a building and no further.
Probably already posted, but could we have the engineer equivalent for the paramedic? Mechanic with Toolkit
I think rifle ranges from 16-24 should be 0 mod. Hear me out. Shotguns and smgs are strictly better at this range band and significantly better up close leaving rifles the 8-16 band to try and shine. Letting them go to 0s at 16-24 would smooth out their rangebands and give them a more significant edge over smgs and shotguns. This would also help with the overall feeling that rifles of all kinds are kinda meh.
That feels like a pretty niche issue, which can easily be rectified with a touch of recosting. But, also, it'd still give a 0 range out to 32", which is still a pretty big deal.
I'd argue for the contrary. Guts easily qualifies as rule that is relevant in every match. Some people just always forget to use both the Guts check and the Guts move (you always have that and it's a useful tool - Courage or not). Could definitely use some cleaning up. It's a bit of a mess when you are allowed to Guts Move. - Should just me a Short Skill Move with reduced distance (2"+Kinematika). - The default option should be something else than "just go Prone in the open till you die". Moving away from the Danger Prone ~> halve value Guts Move =1" should be the default option. - Not allowing to get closer to the enemy doesn't make Sense if it improves your Cover. When you're running scared and bullets start flying straight at you, you're pretty likely to keep running straight making a nosedive for the car in front of you rather than turning around and taking shots in the back.
Agreed, but I find I regularly have to remind people about the "don't move closer" because that's the first direction they check for, unless they're stunned - that's where they want to go with their aggressive pieces, to be even more aggressive next order.
Which is why it should not be allowed on every Guts move. But it should be allowed if it can improve your Cover, basically a Priority thing. Staying alive right now > getting away from the danger zone. Hm here's a crazy thought. Courage could also be changed to allow troops stay standing and move towards the enemy instead of auto passing the test. The idea definitely still needs work to make Religious/Courage matter in comparison. Opens up the option for a CC oriented Skill that lets you Guts Move in BtB for some CC troops (Engage+ anyone? Don't add that to Courage or Martial Arts, keep it separate). But mostly it's the simulation of a Heroic trooper weaving through HMG fire to get his Sword/Shotgun/Pistol to bear while eating 5 Orders worth of BS Attacks on the game table. Not going to insist this is a good idea but I'm all for giving the Reactive Player (and CC Troops) more agenda.
Except Guts also happens on active. What you'd kinda get is an active turn Dodge movement but on WIP instead of PH, and in addition to whatever they declared. While I agree Guts movement could be cleaned up a little, I don't think any significant change is necessary. It does what it's designed to.
