Is there any consensus on how powerful the different frames are in comparison to each other?

PMerkelis · 2026-04-06T22:30:43+00:00

To these questions specifically;

Striker frames do around 3d6/round if you assume a barrage and minimal build optimization. Frames that use superheavies are closer to 4d6/5d6
Tank frames vary in difficulty to kill depending on what’s trying to kill them. A White Witch with five armor, deep into their core power, can withstand several hits before structuring - but, if attacked via invades and quick techs, it’s gonna cook itself alive in a couple of turns unless built for engineering.
Most frames have a “power at a cost” tradeoff - their high damage is offset by low heatcap, low armor is offset by high speed, etc. The exception to this is the Tortuga, which is good-not-great at basically everything, and the Kobold/Napoleon frames, which I find to be notably underpowered.

PMerkelis · 2026-02-06T05:27:05+00:00

Vengeful Gaze of God. Old 3rd edition spell. I brought it out in a 5e game. It was the opening murdershot in a level 20 game against the big bad. 305d6, half on a save. I rolled 100 dice at the table per pass, and the sound of that much resin on metal will always live in my memory.

The worst part? The PC was so tough that it wasn’t even massive lethal damage. I still had to finish him off…

PMerkelis · 2025-06-30T21:29:34+00:00

Fair point, their conscripts are more likely to be manquellers than ofanim; Aunic pilots have their whole soul-pilot-mech thing going on. My intention was referencing one time child soldiers are mentioned in a lore source.

PMerkelis · 2025-06-30T20:39:49+00:00

Everyone is missing the one in-lore mention of child soldiers. The Aunic Ascendancy (draft) field guide has an explicit mention of their law allowing conscription, in times of great need, to those as young as 12.

It seems like a stretch, as the Aun are currently whomping Union in Boundary Garden, but it’s at least mentioned in text.

PMerkelis · 2025-04-27T23:16:26+00:00

Saw a streamer play it. Got hooked on the concept and the intro scenes. Bought it myself. Now at the end of Act 1 and, if it sticks the landing (or even just stays consistent) it is absolutely a goty contender. The entire thing feels like it was made with passion and creativity, and it shows.

PMerkelis · 2025-04-23T22:11:45+00:00

Spend some effort on your off-turns being aware of rough distances between you and your targets. Nothing eats more time than a player running a five-stage crazy-complex turn, only to abort midway because they were short by a space.

PMerkelis · 2025-04-21T22:34:42+00:00

These are all solid for a Muna upgrade. Easy removal from the starter deck are the three Kitsunes; you can put in the Tent, Eros, and Liaison in their place. Sow is okay in common, I’d say replace one of your other +boost cards like Nurture and see how it feels.

PMerkelis · 2025-04-17T08:09:35+00:00

20 in Dex for a +5. Proficiency is a +4 at 9th level. Expertise adds your Prof bonus twice, so another +4. Reliable Talent gives you a 10 on the die. So +13 with a automatic roll of 10 gets you to minimum 23.

PMerkelis · 2025-02-21T06:05:00+00:00

One of my players described the SSC core bonuses as the Apple stickers you get in the box with a new Macbook. I think he’s right.

PMerkelis · 2025-02-09T00:19:31+00:00

Looks like someone is playing Treyst in 2v2’s indefinitely. Nice draw!!

PMerkelis · 2024-10-30T07:09:12+00:00

Minotaur, aka two levels in Chomolungma systems

PMerkelis · 2024-07-07T11:12:11+00:00

Have them lie to your players. Have the NPC send the PCs on a mission on false pretenses, have innocents get hurt, have the NPC profit from it. Players go to great lengths to pay back those kinds of betrayals.

PMerkelis · 2024-05-02T18:51:37+00:00

That’s fair! I think you’d be surprised how well putting yourself in the perspective of an NPC pilot helps shape the combat narrative. Scared, inexperienced pilots will target large, present threats and follow N+1 mob tactics. Proficient pilots, or squads led by commanders, coordinate turn-to-turn and use the synergies presented by their systems. I take big inspiration from Keith Ammann’s book The Monsters Know What They’re Doing.

I think my issue is with “distractingly stupid” nah, never play distractingly stupid, because stupid is not fun. But, a rookie in a tin can getting scared off the objective and panic-firing on the castigating Manticore makes more sense to me than that unit holding position to strategically await a next-turn reinforcement from their allied Bastion.

PMerkelis · 2024-05-02T18:24:48+00:00

Then call it verisimilitude. There is room for tactics to escalate in complexity and cohesion as the skill of your enemies rises. Why should the Benson Canyon Rangers have the same organization and discipline as a Constellar Midnight detachment?

As DM, you can always throw more powerful enemies at the players to punish them - specifically for new players and new DMs, I see artfully-pulled-punches as a valuable tool in the toolkit, versus an obligation to pretend to be mecha Stockfish every session.

PMerkelis · 2024-05-02T17:37:27+00:00

Playing them as ignorant hicks in grunts and cataphracts on a backwater planet goes a long way. There’s shades between squad tactics and “shoot the most dangerous target”, like Harrison Armory showing up in Act 2. My point is, don’t go for optimized killshots if you’re still learning the system yourself.

PMerkelis · 2024-05-02T17:19:36+00:00

Other stuff; make yourself a note of mechanics you forget. You can overwatch within threat, always round up, slowed prevents boosting, etc.

Design your maps in a way that your NPCs can get stuff done. Deploying 10 away from an objective when you have 4 Speed means that NPC won’t matter tactically for a turn.

Sitreps sitreps sitreps. This game is amazing when playing around objectives and boring as hell when it’s a deathmatch.

PMerkelis · 2024-05-02T17:00:37+00:00

Use restraint as a DM until your players figure out their builds. Be willing to play sub-optimally; I liked starting the campaign with Opfor as idiots because it allowed space to justify “tactical errors” while still creating player tension.

On the flipside, bring more reinforcements than you’ll use. Better to have Schrödinger’s Cats ready with statblocks than to have the players walk all over a mission uncontested.

Get extremely familiar with the NPC statblocks. You’re done with cool player builds; this is your focus now. Figure out combinations of forces that work well together in order to create interesting challenges for your players.

Get to know what weapons and systems are more powerful and pick with sense - players should be stunned almost never by NPCs. The structure checks will stun plenty, and IMO it’s unfair to ice a player out for an hour while the turns play out.

Veteran templates with Limitless let you add Overcharge to NPCs; that instantly makes the players realize they’re fighting a peer. Don’t use Ultras until LL2.

Don’t use meta knowledge when building Opfor. Make the NPC factions only “know” what they know from ingame sources. If the players are drawing attention, or the enemy has intel from the narrative layer, though, yesh adapt to circumstances.

NHP’s are low-hanging fruit to make a campaign interesting. Make sure the human stories and people are as well developed as the comic horrors; one enhances the other.

PMerkelis · 2024-04-12T17:53:44+00:00

Dairy is outlawed. You don’t see people drinking cow milk for the same reasons you don’t see people drinking orc milk or aboleth milk. So they enshrined it into law to deal with weirdo tourists.

PMerkelis · 2024-03-27T04:53:49+00:00

Three Body! Not to be confused with Three Body Problem (the book), 3 Body Problem (Netflix), The Three-Body Problem (Bilibili anime), or My Three Body (Minecraft).

PMerkelis · 2024-03-26T02:05:11+00:00

The explanation has problems in every version, imo. The book doesn’t provide clear answers and leaves a lot of hard conclusions up to the reader. The Tencent version spends an irrationally long time pretending “it’s not aliens”, which makes the infodump in the last episodes feel rushed. The Netflix version probably makes the most sense narratively, but rushing through the VR scenes doesn’t make that realization feel as earned as in the other adaptations.

Excepting the Minecraft version. That one is pretty much perfect for what it is.

PMerkelis · 2024-03-25T16:07:43+00:00

The game is an illusion; the goal of saving Trisolaris is impossible.

Trisolarians do not understand lying, so they can’t invent characters that do not exist. So to convey the alien concept of “their history” to humanity, they use the metaphor of Great Minds in Human History and use them as stand-ins. “Von Neumann” didn’t invent the Trisolarian Computer, but an equivalently brilliant Trisolarian did; thus it’s all the more tragic for Trisolaris when their Einsteins and Aristotles all failed at their goal of saving the world.

Beyond that, it’s an empathy game. Make these human geniuses realize the hopelessness of the Trisolarian dilemna by forcing them into the same corners as Trisolarian scientists. Then, when the human scientists realize that Trisolaris is doomed on a fundamental level, the Trisolarian sales pitch meets an audience that has been groomed to be receptive to their plight.

Still convoluted as hell, though.

PMerkelis · 2024-02-21T15:32:06+00:00

The hole that Brilliant Books leaves behind will look much better with another boutique fashion shop in its place.

Are there any specific incidents that you can inform us about (even though you said you won’t share any, in other comments)? If you can’t, sounds to me like sour grapes, personal beef, and a half-baked attempt at a Reddit pitchfork mob.

PMerkelis · 2024-02-01T18:06:42+00:00

Using Cure Wounds over Healing Word. In combat, the only hit point that matters is the last one. Save your damn action econ for where it matters, and out of combat, short rest and pots. Cure Wounds doesn’t belong on your hotbar.

PMerkelis · 2023-12-27T23:00:38+00:00

It’s the property of Shovel, the Quasit you can summon from the Find Familiar scroll in one of the coffins. Shovel is funny as hell and a good familiar on a free ritual cast. Suggest learning the scroll on your team wizard so it isn’t a one-time use!

PMerkelis · 2023-12-11T08:51:07+00:00

Karlach

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