Something I just noticed, having bought this new edition a few months ago: the Psycho Rival, at the very least, has a Mecha Point deficit. Just tried punching everything into a function on a CS made in Google Sheets to calculate all the MP costs, and without any Design Flaws, the Psycho Rival's final MP balance comes out to -10 at PL0. Feel free to reference my work below to verify if desired:
Starting allowance for Rival NPCs: 100MP at PL0
Might and Speed cost: 21MP each at PL0 for a stat of 6
Guard and Threshold cost: 15MP each at PL0 for a stat of 5
Energy cost: 3MP at PL0 for a stat of 2
Systems cost: 0MP at PL0 for a stat of, well, 0
Experimental Reactor: 20MP
Reactive Booster, Beam Saber, and Beam Rifle: 5 MP each
Your math is correct. But there is more. Looking at it in detail now, at PL5 there's an additional 4 extra points given, totaling to a -14 deficit. This mistake is unfortunate as I don't have the working files for Remastered anymore, and I'd have to redo the entire manual from scratch (without some of the original artwork, even) to fix it.
A quick and dirty fix (without redoing the whole build and using the round attribute costs rule) to each of the PLs would be:
PL0-1 Guard and Threshold -1 each.
PL2-4 Remove Versatile Model.
PL5 Might and Systems -1 each.
Recover Guard and Threshold by PL 2 and regain Versatile Model by PL 5, obviously.
Boy I sure hope this is the one build with mistakes and that the rest are fine.
Psycho Rival was the only one I noticed with this MP deficit problem. All the others looked like they checked out just fine according to the mental math I was running at the time, but I could also be mistaken. Will take a thorough look and a calculator through the prebuilds sometime and let you know if I discover any other point deficits in the pre-built NPCs before you do.
So, continuing on from what I mentioned yesterday, I've decided to take a look through the rest of the Rival NPC prebuilds, as well as those for the Grunts, and have discovered a few other units with MP Deficits (only 4 when not counting the Psycho Rival). I've compiled a Google Doc of both my findings, as well as potential spot-fixes for the MP deficits I found, for your review and judgement.
Looks about right at a glance. Let this be a lesson about doing the math for 30 builds in a single day: Triple-check your math! Will certainly be doing more of that in the future.
Good job with the spot-fixes, the reasoning for them is solid enough and you've saved me the time of doing them myself.
I am a fan of the original game from back in the day. What was changed, generally, from 1st edition to 2nd Edition? I purchased it but it can be hard to tell such changes from a glance.
A lot! It is structurally the same game but there's significant tweaks to every section. Just off the top of my head (some of this will be repeating the store entry bullet points):
A myriad balance changes for individual weapons, powers, etc.
Better rules for on-foot combat.
Alt rules for Critical Failures, Failing Forwards and Exceptional Success in chapter 1.
A "Dramatic Finish" rule to make defeating enemies narratively spectacular.
An expanded alt rules chapter, I believe custom weapons and corruption were already mentioned but those are the standouts among the new stuff.
← Return to Tabletop RPG
Comments
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
Something I just noticed, having bought this new edition a few months ago: the Psycho Rival, at the very least, has a Mecha Point deficit. Just tried punching everything into a function on a CS made in Google Sheets to calculate all the MP costs, and without any Design Flaws, the Psycho Rival's final MP balance comes out to -10 at PL0. Feel free to reference my work below to verify if desired:
Starting allowance for Rival NPCs: 100MP at PL0
Might and Speed cost: 21MP each at PL0 for a stat of 6
Guard and Threshold cost: 15MP each at PL0 for a stat of 5
Energy cost: 3MP at PL0 for a stat of 2
Systems cost: 0MP at PL0 for a stat of, well, 0
Experimental Reactor: 20MP
Reactive Booster, Beam Saber, and Beam Rifle: 5 MP each
f=100 -(21+15+15+3+0+21)-20-(5x3)
100-75-20-15
25-20-15
5-15
-10
Your math is correct. But there is more. Looking at it in detail now, at PL5 there's an additional 4 extra points given, totaling to a -14 deficit. This mistake is unfortunate as I don't have the working files for Remastered anymore, and I'd have to redo the entire manual from scratch (without some of the original artwork, even) to fix it.
A quick and dirty fix (without redoing the whole build and using the round attribute costs rule) to each of the PLs would be:
PL0-1 Guard and Threshold -1 each.
PL2-4 Remove Versatile Model.
PL5 Might and Systems -1 each.
Recover Guard and Threshold by PL 2 and regain Versatile Model by PL 5, obviously.
Boy I sure hope this is the one build with mistakes and that the rest are fine.
Thanks for pointing this out!
Psycho Rival was the only one I noticed with this MP deficit problem. All the others looked like they checked out just fine according to the mental math I was running at the time, but I could also be mistaken. Will take a thorough look and a calculator through the prebuilds sometime and let you know if I discover any other point deficits in the pre-built NPCs before you do.
So, continuing on from what I mentioned yesterday, I've decided to take a look through the rest of the Rival NPC prebuilds, as well as those for the Grunts, and have discovered a few other units with MP Deficits (only 4 when not counting the Psycho Rival). I've compiled a Google Doc of both my findings, as well as potential spot-fixes for the MP deficits I found, for your review and judgement.
Looks about right at a glance. Let this be a lesson about doing the math for 30 builds in a single day: Triple-check your math! Will certainly be doing more of that in the future.
Good job with the spot-fixes, the reasoning for them is solid enough and you've saved me the time of doing them myself.
Woah!! Lookin' sick bro!!
I compiled earlier changelogs into a singular list for convenience' sake. It is in gdoc form because it is 12 pages long.
BCG rules v1.2 to v1.7 changelog
I am a fan of the original game from back in the day. What was changed, generally, from 1st edition to 2nd Edition? I purchased it but it can be hard to tell such changes from a glance.
A lot! It is structurally the same game but there's significant tweaks to every section. Just off the top of my head (some of this will be repeating the store entry bullet points):