[Pod 0] Tetsuo Tyrell (Jace Investigator) - Compat. Testing

[Captain Stupendous]

Originally Posted by NecroBlade

Yeah, it's probably a little too much of a non-choice that way. Could be +2R/+1A or 1 and 1 instead. It will still always be used against Squads, though, but I'm not sure how to iron that wrinkle out.

What if you did this?

NEURAL HACK
When attacking with Tetsuo Tyrell, you may add 2 to his Range value and subtract 1 from his Attack value. If you do, reduce the defense of enemy figures attacked this turn by 3.

EDIT: -3 defense might be too punitive. Maybe -2 defense? I do like the idea of subtracting Tetsuo's Attack dice in exchange for subtracting enemy defense. It's thematic to the feel of "hacking" another unit and makes it easier to land at least one wound while also reducing the maximum amount of damage he can do for the turn.

[Astroking112]

Originally Posted by NecroBlade

Enslave technically has the same problem. If you killed a figure, you can't Enslave it.

Here's a thought:

NEURAL OVERCLOCK
When attacking with Tetsuo Tyrell, you may add 2 to his Range and Attack values. If you do, reduce the number of wounds inflicted by that attack by one, to a minimum of one.

MIND JACK 13
When revealing an Order Marker on Tetsuo Tyrell, after taking Tetsuo Tyrell's turn, if he inflicted one or more wounds on a Unique Hero with his normal attack this turn but did not destroy it, you may roll the 20-sided die. If you roll a 13 or higher, take temporary control of the Hero he attacked and immediately take a turn with that Hero. At the end of that turn, control of the chosen Hero returns to its previous owner. All Order Markers that were on the figure's Army Card will stay on the Army Card.


Mind Jack stays as-is currently, but you drop the self-wounding of Neural Overclock in favor of nerfing the attack instead. Weakens his offense overall, but it justifies and is counter-balanced by the extra boost from Neural Overclock. He's less likely to kill something, but has better options for attacking in the first place.

I feel like this entirely removes the choice behind the design. Placing a significant drawback on Overclock, despite its potential to help you steal turns, is one of the highlights of the design, IMO. It makes for a simple risk and reward tension that has really defined Tetsuo's playstyle from my experiences. If we're looking to redesign him to keep him from accidentally killing something, then we should take care to preserve that tension.

Originally Posted by Captain Stupendous

What if you did this?

NEURAL HACK
When attacking with Tetsuo Tyrell, you may add 2 to his Range value and subtract 1 from his Attack value. If you do, reduce the defense of enemy figures attacked this turn by 3.

EDIT: -3 defense might be too punitive. Maybe -2 defense? I do like the idea of subtracting Tetsuo's Attack dice in exchange for subtracting enemy defense. It's thematic to the feel of "hacking" another unit and makes it easier to land at least one wound while also reducing the maximum amount of damage he can do for the turn.

I feel like we're tweaking a bit too many values here. I do like that there is a slight penalty to this version (IMO, making the technology dangerous or have drawbacks is part of the cyberpunk flavor), but it's kind of overwhelmed by having such a great defense penalty. -2 defense can be absolutely brutal against a lot of stuff.

Honestly, if we're trying to stop Tetsuo from killing heroes instead of enslaving them, then we should just go with Enslave. Throwing extra mechanics on top of Mind Jack and Overclock to reduce the wounds he deals to focus on stealing turns really makes me feel like we should just cut out the middleman and go with normal stealing turns. There's nothing wrong with more directly repurposing Enslave if that's what we're going for, after all.

Here's a "simplified" version using a more conventional Enslave:

MIND JACK 19
After attacking a Unique Hero with Tetsuo Tyrell, you may roll the 20-sided die. Add 1 to your roll for each skull rolled by Tetsuo this turn. If you roll a 19 or higher, Tetsuo's turn ends and you may take temporary control of the defending Hero and immediately take a turn with that Hero. At the end of that turn, control of the chosen Hero returns to its previous owner. All Order Markers that were on the figure's Army Card will stay on the Army Card.

It's a little more bogged down with wording and clauses than the previous "Deal a wound > roll for MJ" version, but it at least reduces the need to deal between 1 and X wounds to even get to roll. It still runs into the same problem of likely killing things that you wouldn't mind Jacking, though.

Or we could more directly address the root of the issue and just rename Enslave and redesign Overclock:

OVERCLOCK
Before rolling for Tetsuo's Mind Jack power, you may place a wound marker on this card. If you do, add 5 to your roll.

[Pumpkin_King]

To be clear, of course it's possible you kill something you might want to MJ - but having MJ require the wound is the issue. If you kill it, you don't get to use MJ at all. It's taking a good thing and making it feel bad because you didn't get to use The Fun Trick This Hero Has.

[Pumpkin_King]

There was discussion in the discord about bringing him back to design?

[Astroking112]

Originally Posted by Pumpkin_King

There was discussion in the discord about bringing him back to design?

Are you wanting to bring him back to redesign Mind Jack or to bump his range? The latter has been a bigger issue in the tests so far, but most of the recent discussion seems to have been around the former.

I'd be perfectly content with moving him up to 5 range permanently right now, but I'd like to get at least one more test in myself with the current version of Mind Jack if that's alright.

[Pumpkin_King]

Yeah, we can wait for another test.

[NecroBlade]

Originally Posted by Pumpkin_King

To be clear, of course it's possible you kill something you might want to MJ - but having MJ require the wound is the issue. If you kill it, you don't get to use MJ at all. It's taking a good thing and making it feel bad because you didn't get to use The Fun Trick This Hero Has.

How about this (new NO wording modeled after Azurite Warlord):

NEURAL OVERCLOCK
When Tetsuo Tyrell attacks, you may add 2 to his Range and Attack numbers. If you do, at the end of Tetsuo's turn place 1 wound marker on this card.

MIND JACK 18
When revealing an Order Marker on Tetsuo Tyrell, after taking Tetsuo Tyrell's turn, choose a Unique Hero within [4-6] clear sight spaces and roll the 20-sided die. If Tetsuo attacked that figure this turn, add 1 to your roll for each skull he rolled. If you roll an 18 or higher, take temporary control of the Hero he attacked and immediately take a turn with that Hero. At the end of that turn, control of the chosen Hero returns to its previous owner. All Order Markers that were on the figure's Army Card will stay on the Army Card.

Now you want to NO to improve the attack (as always), improve the range (so you can fire from safer positions), and to improve MJ if you don't kill, so all that deserves placing a wound. However, MJ can still be used without all that, but I increased the number due to the flexibility and so it's not just a better Enslave.

Also I'm still in favor of adding a Range bonus to NO instead of changing the Range value on his card, so we don't ruin that beautiful 6/5/4/3/2/100 aesthetic.

[flameslayer93]

I can see this variant working. It keeps my boy Tetsuo as an offensive cannon and reworded Enslave is already an just because its already a thing.

[Ericth74]

This is the best version of this card that I've seen. I really like both the changes to his powers.

Originally Posted by NecroBlade

How about this (new NO wording modeled after Azurite Warlord):

NEURAL OVERCLOCK
When Tetsuo Tyrell attacks, you may add 2 to his Range and Attack numbers. If you do, at the end of Tetsuo's turn place 1 wound marker on this card.

MIND JACK 13
When revealing an Order Marker on Tetsuo Tyrell, after taking Tetsuo Tyrell's turn, choose a Unique Hero within [4-6] clear sight spaces and roll the 20-sided die. If Tetsuo attacked that figure this turn, add 1 to your roll for each skull he rolled. If you roll an 18 or higher, take temporary control of the Hero he attacked and immediately take a turn with that Hero. At the end of that turn, control of the chosen Hero returns to its previous owner. All Order Markers that were on the figure's Army Card will stay on the Army Card.

Now you want to NO to improve the attack (as always), improve the range (so you can fire from safer positions), and to improve MJ if you don't kill, so all that deserves placing a wound. However, MJ can still be used without all that, but I increased the number due to the flexibility and so it's not just a better Enslave.

Also I'm still in favor of adding a Range bonus to NO instead of changing the Range value on his card, so we don't ruin that beautiful 6/5/4/3/2/100 aesthetic.

[Astroking112]

Originally Posted by NecroBlade

How about this (new NO wording modeled after Azurite Warlord):

NEURAL OVERCLOCK
When Tetsuo Tyrell attacks, you may add 2 to his Range and Attack numbers. If you do, at the end of Tetsuo's turn place 1 wound marker on this card.

I'm not a big fan of either of these changes, to be honest. The Azurite Warlord killing himself in his fury makes sense for a big rebellious snake. Tetsuo killing himself with an Overclock to get some last damage in feels a little too selfless to me--I think that him refusing to Overclock when he only has 1 life left makes perfect sense.

The range should be a basic feature of the card. See below.

Now you want to NO to improve the attack (as always), improve the range (so you can fire from safer positions), and to improve MJ if you don't kill, so all that deserves placing a wound. However, MJ can still be used without all that, but I increased the number due to the flexibility and so it's not just a better Enslave.

Also I'm still in favor of adding a Range bonus to NO instead of changing the Range value on his card, so we don't ruin that beautiful 6/5/4/3/2/100 aesthetic.

Adding range to Neural Overclock constitutes much less risk and choice than adding attack dice. Adding 2 range on a wound means that he'll always do it when he couldn't reach the target, can more safely sit in good positions, and generally makes it so that you don't have to worry about him taking damage from other sources as frequently.

It also makes him feel even more reliant on Overclock; in my tests, choosing whether the wound was worth the trouble or not was tense. With that version, I'd do it just about every time to throw 5 dice from behind a screen of rats or anything else. Unless the opponent has range, Tetsuo probably won't be taking damage from anything other than himself anyway. Unfortunately, this proposal only helps if Tetsuo is Overclocking each turn, but I think that he really needs that 5 range to just generally feel a little better to play.

I really like the 6/5/4/3/2/100 aesthetic as well, but I think that it just isn't working out here. We should be willing to change it if it's in this card's best interests.

MIND JACK 18
When revealing an Order Marker on Tetsuo Tyrell, after taking Tetsuo Tyrell's turn, choose a Unique Hero within [4-6] clear sight spaces and roll the 20-sided die. If Tetsuo attacked that figure this turn, add 1 to your roll for each skull he rolled. If you roll an 18 or higher, take temporary control of the Hero he attacked and immediately take a turn with that Hero. At the end of that turn, control of the chosen Hero returns to its previous owner. All Order Markers that were on the figure's Army Card will stay on the Army Card.

If we want to go this direction, then I like the earlier wording a bit better:

MIND JACK 19
After attacking a Unique Hero with Tetsuo Tyrell, you may roll the 20-sided die. Add 1 to your roll for each skull rolled by Tetsuo this turn. If you roll a 19 or higher, Tetsuo's turn ends and you may take temporary control of the defending Hero and immediately take a turn with that Hero. At the end of that turn, control of the chosen Hero returns to its previous owner. All Order Markers that were on the figure's Army Card will stay on the Army Card.

Slap on an Order Marker requirement (numbers are all placeholder, of course) and the only difference is that this forces Tetsuo to attack the Unique Hero to get a chance at Mind Jack. Otherwise, it's essentially just an improved Enslave--I don't think that Tetsuo really needs to be able to attack a squaddie and then Enslave something else.

That said, like I mentioned above, this doesn't address the root of the issue. If we add to Mind Jack for skulls rolled, then we're increasing the odds in the times when he's most likely to have killed the enemy anyway. It's a buff against stuff like Deathwalkers and Q9 with high defense, but we're still going to run into the "disappointment" of having killed a figure that you wanted to steal a turn with.

[Pumpkin_King]

Originally Posted by Astroking112

Slap on an Order Marker requirement (numbers are all placeholder, of course) and the only difference is that this forces Tetsuo to attack the Unique Hero to get a chance at Mind Jack. Otherwise, it's essentially just an improved Enslave--I don't think that Tetsuo really needs to be able to attack a squaddie and then Enslave something else.

That said, like I mentioned above, this doesn't address the root of the issue. If we add to Mind Jack for skulls rolled, then we're increasing the odds in the times when he's most likely to have killed the enemy anyway. It's a buff against stuff like Deathwalkers and Q9 with high defense, but we're still going to run into the "disappointment" of having killed a figure that you wanted to steal a turn with.

I prefer NB's version - I think allowing him to attack whatever with his energy beams (or whatever form we're saying his ranged attack takes) and then letting him MJ a nearby enemy does a lot to help my personal concerns in that matter. The MFM can do the same thing.



I've been advocating just "basically Enslave" for a while now so any hypothetical ability's similarity to it doesn't bother me.

[All Your Pie]

Let's return to design here. I think it's safe to say that we know we want to change Mind Jack, so we should pull back and hash out how. It's an from me to do so.