PK's customs MK. III - 3/20 - Empyrean Issue 2: Imperiled

[Just_a_Bill]

I've been thinking about your goals for Kate as an anti-squad fanner, and want to offer this brainstorm. While the original forced fanning of a different target for each bullet was hard to swallow, I think we've all seen westerns where the hero fanned all his lead into one big bad guy, or may have fanned a couple of different henchmen a few times each: aim1 — blam blam blam — aim2 — blam blam blam.

FAN THE HAMMER SPECIAL ATTACK
Range 5. Attack 1.
Choose 1 Hero or up to 2 Squad figures to attack. Kate may attack the chosen figure(s) up to a total of 6 times with Fan the Hammer Special Attack.

The natural objection here would be "yikes, 6 attacks is too many and will slow the game down." But that Attack 1 is pretty key. Rolling a single die each time is fast to do and fast to interpret, and she's going to whiff half the time, which means defense dice only even need to be rolled (on average) for three of those attacks. Since it's an SA, lots of complications such as Counter Strike also wouldn't apply. I think a special like this could arguably have the highest attacks-per-second rate in the game, which seems really appropriate for your theme.

I love the thematic match of 6 attacks for a six-gun, and the fact that fanning is not about accuracy but simply spamming lead.

[Pumpkin_King]

I actually did consider a 1 attack, 6 times ability, and that looks like a decent way to play it. I'll definitely consider that one.

[Lamaclown]

This is how much I like these units...



I can count on one hand how many times I have actually purchased figures after seeing custom cards for them (not counting VC and C3G). Usually I just proxy. I will wait to print out the cards until you are settled on the final design, but I can't wait till they are done!

Again, great job, PK!

[Pumpkin_King]

Wow! That's high praise if I've ever heard it! Thank you so much!

[Just_a_Bill]

Originally Posted by Lamaclown

This is how much I like these units...

Pretty much the same story here. I already had Steve/Clayton, and the Doc Ock clix is a bit too rich for my blood, but I ordered the other two yesterday after reading PK's customs — and like Lamaclown, I rarely do this.

So clearly, PK, you've hit on something good that is inspiring us.

[Pumpkin_King]

That makes me very hopeful for their prospects in the future in VC projects! Thank you so much, both of you.

I'm going to be trying to playtest their current versions soon.

[Pumpkin_King]

Originally Posted by Pumpkin_King

After some discussion in the pre-sov thread and the heroscape discord, I'm going to tentatively designate these (and Jim's) as the "final first draft" of these lawmen. I'm going to try and get some games in with them before I think about SoV things. If anyone plays a game with them, let me know!

[Just_a_Bill]

Here's a question with the new Clayton. I'll use Carr and Lady Krav as stand-ins (click the pic to make it a little bigger).



Clearly Clayton can shoot at the Marro Warrior on his first shot or a later shot when Kate raises her hand. But can he ping off Kate to shoot at the Zettian?

If yes (which is what I assume from the current wording), then I would think you will want to say "Range 6+Special."

If no (which would be more realistic for Clayton's weapon and his core design), then I would think you will want to say "choose a figure to attack with Shootout Special Attack that is within 6 clear sight spaces of the chosen Lawman and within 6 clear sight spaces of Clayton." (This wording template for constraining distance by two different figures comes from Arashara Goshiri.)

I'm sad that people seem to feel that doing the shootout in a way that is more thematically satisfying would somehow be too boring. It makes little sense to me that a "shootout" is when Clayton uses his revolver to ricochet his shots off of all his deputies at Deadeye-Danlike rifle range while they all stand there as just spotters.

[superfrog]

It would be good to clarify J_a_B's question.

I do like the theme and mechanics of this better than any of the previous versions. Well done on that.

[Astroking112]

Originally Posted by Just_a_Bill

Here's a question with the new Clayton. I'll use Carr and Lady Krav as stand-ins (click the pic to make it a little bigger).



Clearly Clayton can shoot at the Marro Warrior on his first shot or a later shot when Kate raises her hand. But can he ping off Kate to shoot at the Zettian?

If yes (which is what I assume from the current wording), then I would think you will want to say "Range 6+Special."

My understanding is that he can "ping" off of Kate here to attack the Zettian, despite it being 10 spaces away. I believe that he would have to attack the Marro first, though, since the wording of Shootout implies that he has to shoot before any of the other Lawmen.

I do agree that saying "Range 6 + Special" would be more accurate to the power. The problem is that the first shot only has a range of 6, so the attack would need to be reworded a little bit to tell the player that the first target must be within 6 spaces of Clayton, and then they can choose a figure within 6 spaces of a Lawman within 4 spaces of Clayton.

Originally Posted by Just_a_Bill

If no (which would be more realistic for Clayton's weapon and his core design), then I would think you will want to say "choose a figure to attack with Shootout Special Attack that is within 6 clear sight spaces of the chosen Lawman and within 6 clear sight spaces of Clayton." (This wording template for constraining distance by two different figures comes from Arashara Goshiri.)

I'm sad that people seem to feel that doing the shootout in a way that is more thematically satisfying would somehow be too boring. It makes little sense to me that a "shootout" is when Clayton uses his revolver to ricochet his shots off of all his deputies at Deadeye-Danlike rifle range while they all stand there as just spotters.

I think that limiting it to within 6 spaces of both Clayton and the chosen Lawman would be rather clunky and confusing. The idea is that the chosen Lawman is taking the shot, not Clayton, so the range of his gun shouldn't matter. I think that the theme comes across pretty strongly as-is, albeit I'm sure there are some weird corner cases where it'll actually matter that it's Clayton who is technically making the shot.

[Just_a_Bill]

It might also be worth thinking about how you want Sheriff's Posse and Shootout SA to work in the future if later on there are Lawmen that are squaddies, common, or both. I have a vague memory that maybe C3V was working on a common Lawman (for that clix guy in the green shirt), but even if they aren't it's always best to future-proof your text. In case you will only want Lawman Heroes or Unique Lawmen or Unique Lawman Heroes to count, now would seem like a good time to note that before it gets forgotten.

Originally Posted by Astroking112

The idea is that the chosen Lawman is taking the shot ... albeit I'm sure there are some weird corner cases where it'll actually matter that it's Clayton who is technically making the shot.

This illustrates my point nicely; you have to pretend Kate is shooting for the theme to make sense (and some players will think she really is shooting) ... but you have to know that only Clayton is shooting in order to get the rules right. It's inherently a straight-up contradiction between theme and gameplay.

And (maybe even more important) it's not just "weird corner cases" that matter. It's also core gameplay. Things as simple and basic as the rule that you cannot target a non-adjacent figure if you're engaged, for example. I wish now that I had shown this in my example by making Kate engaged, but you guys will immediately see what I'm talking about. (I wonder what fraction of players will realize that if Clayton is engaged and there are 4 Lawmen nearby, Clayton can attack the adjacent figure 5 times but nobody else; and it matters not if any of the deputies are engaged.) When the basic theme behind a special leads to the wrong interpretation of a core rule, that's not something that should be handwaved away.

The number of "corner cases" is not exactly trivial, and they will grow as well. I did a quick scan to see which figures have specials where it matters today, or will matter in the future after more units are created (such as a Lawman who follows Utgar). My quick scan revealed these, though I'm sure there are more (and I don't have all the latest VCs in my database):

Combat Challenge (Tandros Kreel)
Concealment (Brave Arrow, Mohican River Tribe)
Dismiss the Rabble (Templar Cavalry)
Eternal War (Ebon Armor)
Evasive (Zettian Deathwings, Beakface Sneaks, Elite Onyx Vipers)
Flutter (Quorik Warwitch)
Gunner Casualties (Mok)
Iron Shirt Mastery (Yi Feng)
Protection from Evil Aura (Ana Karithon)
Purple Heart (Capt. John Varan)
Skeletal Form (Tomb Skeleton Archers), Tomb Skeletons
Stealth Dodge (Agent Skahen, Deathwalker 7000, Krav Maga Agents)

[superfrog]

To cut that list way down, you could stipulate that Pierce must be unengaged. That still hits theme, to me.