The Book of Commander Rogers

[Just_a_Bill]

Originally Posted by capsocrates

PHOTONIC ENERGY SHIELD
After you roll defense dice for Commander Rogers, if you did not roll excess shields, add one automatic shield to whatever was rolled, or if you did roll excess shields and Commander Rogers is defending against a normal attack from a figure within 5 clear sight spaces, the attacking figure receives one wound.

Ouch, that's kind of a run-on mess. And even if it weren't, the "or" isn't really the right tool for this job; it's a patch to compensate for the fact that "did not roll excess shields" is not an effective substitute for "rolled too few shields."

The conditions for PES are not either-or; the function that is desired here has four distinct cases:

• if shields < hits, do thing A
• if shields = hits, do nothing
• if shields > hits and condition X exists, do thing B
• if shields > hits and condition X does not exist, do nothing

This not-so-obvious complexity is the core reason why, over a dozen wordings later, we are still debating and coming up with new ways to not quite say it right.

Maybe it's time to revisit the bulleted approach?

[Hahma]

Originally Posted by Just_a_Bill

This not-so-obvious complexity is the core reason why, over a dozen wordings later, we are still debating and coming up with new ways to not quite say it right.

Maybe it's time to revisit the bulleted approach?

I don't know JaB, this is kind of fun

[quozl]

This is nice and short:

PHOTONIC ENERGY SHIELD
If Commander Rogers is attacked and would receive one or more wounds, you may ignore one of those wounds. If Commander Rogers rolls excess shields when defending against a normal attack from a figure within 5 clear sight spaces, the attacking figure receives one wound.

[Hahma]

That looks like a good one Q. Easy and to the point without a bunch of B.S.

[quozl]

It's what Viegon suggested after Tornado's proposal.

Speaking of which, I'll propose we update Commander Rogers with the following:

Originally Posted by TrollBrute

We have 4 total testers here that show him as balanced (1, 2, 3, 4). quozl likes 260, and I'm good there too.

@A3n - Yea
@johnny139 - Yea
@Karat - Yea
@TrollBrute - Yea
@SirGalahad -
@Viegon - Yea

[Just_a_Bill]

Originally Posted by quozl

PHOTONIC ENERGY SHIELD
If Commander Rogers is attacked and would receive one or more wounds, you may ignore one of those wounds. ...

I like the brevity. However, without a reference to shields or defense dice, it sounds like it also applies to leaving engagement attacks.

[quozl]

Good point. I'll revise my proposal.

[dok]

Originally Posted by Just_a_Bill

I like the brevity. However, without a reference to shields or defense dice, it sounds like it also applies to leaving engagement attacks.

While there is an established ruling that leaving engagement attacks are not attacks, you could say "attacked with a normal or special attack" if you wanted.

On a non-linguistic note, I am in the middle of a game with new Commander Rogers, and I must commend everyone; he feels pretty non-broken now. Good, but not broken.

[Just_a_Bill]

Originally Posted by dok

While there is an established ruling that leaving engagement attacks are not attacks, you could say "attacked with a normal or special attack" if you wanted.

That seems like the kind of rule you don't want to depend on in new designs. I understand the need for it, but it's a pretty ugly and counter-intuitive patch; so I like your suggestion of being more explicit.

Quozl's and dok's good work seems pretty seaworthy to me (with the deletion of "you may" per TrollBrute):

Originally Posted by quozl

PHOTONIC ENERGY SHIELD
If Commander Rogers would receive one or more wounds from a normal or special attack, you may ignore one of those wounds. If Commander Rogers rolls excess shields when defending against a normal attack from a figure within 5 clear sight spaces, the attacking figure receives one wound.

I just noticed it also has the added benefit of explicitly contrasting "normal or special" in the first part with just "normal" in the second; so we're getting double-duty out of the added phrase.

Originally Posted by dok

On a non-linguistic note, I am in the middle of a game with new Commander Rogers, and I must commend everyone; he feels pretty non-broken now. Good, but not broken.

Cool.

[Just_a_Bill]

Oops, sorry: double post.

(I thought as a Site Supporter I could delete, but now I can't find it.)

[Karat]

Yea

[TrollBrute]

I was initially hesitant because I worry about powers possibly triggering off of wounds being dealt (that wouldn't otherwise, if an automatic shield was applied), but I can't think of any off the top of my head, and that version does seem to work for almost everybody. However, it shouldn't be the player's choice if it is ignored or not, it should be automatically ignored. Otherwise, it could be used for Jocasta to deal out an extra wound, or allowing Red Skull to move that wound off of him, etc..

Yea if "you may" is dropped.