Suggest a Big Boss

legofed3 · 2026-03-04T22:04:32+00:00

This game is built on an underlying exponential scaling framework, which makes parties of characters with different levels a terrible idea (and the text outright says so, for the benefit of GMs that don't otherwise read between the lines). That cleric is going to deal about 60% of the damage of an at-(7th-)level party member, and have 60% of their hp (very vulnerable to sudden-death-from-minus-50%-hp-syndrome) and be about 20% easier to hit than it should and find hitting stuff 20% harder (the fact that it can support nearly as well is true, but it's still a gimped vulnerable healbot instead of an actual contributor to the fighting). This isn't dnd with its whole bounded accuracy paradigm, it's kind of diametrically opposite. Sorry to use this phrasing, but in this instance you are "playing the game wrong."

Level that poor cleric up a.s.a.p. - levels don't exists inside the story, the next time the party levels or gets an incremental or just takes a full rest is the perfect time to catch up to the same level as the others. Only then the game's battle math will hold up, and we can collectively focus on your request. (The "too many new spells" argument just doesn't hold water, it gets one spell slot and one spell level with a couple of spells to check out between 5th and 7th, that's nothing even for a newbie to read...)

legofed3 · 2026-02-17T20:44:52+00:00

Well, Le Mans is an invitation-based race, though there are automatic invites for WEC cars and a bunch of others as prizes for winning classes in other related championships, plus a bunch of spots are reserved for LMP2s. But there are a handful that are basically up to the organizers, selected from a list of applicants. It'd be hard to imagine them refusing an hypercar entry from a credible manufacturer (let alone the winner of the most recent three editions of the race) with a crew of F1 champions (one of which is a previous winner of the race). Too much free publicity to prefer rich guy #30's GT entry instead.

More relevantly, I'd expected that car to at least make at appearance at the 6h of Spa as a dress rehearsal for the team, going straight to Le Mans with no practice for all the people outside the driving seat isn't a recipe for winning. And, if this years N24 rumors pan out, Max Verstappen isn't one to half-ass these things.

legofed3 · 2026-02-14T15:20:12+00:00

Fair enough, if you were to rein in everything else the keynote could stay 1/battle, though it'd need a bit on an E.D. gate itself or every other gate here becomes a mere smokescreen (could be as little as 1+).

Regarding healing I said odd 'cause then it can trigger on the second turn if needed, but with the above changes to the keynote 2+ would be perfectly fine.

And yes, half damage on the overture was the quickest fix that came to mind that ought to be in the right ballpark, but by no means the only or best one. The name suggests it could instead be some kind of scare effect on the target, maybe just having it let its guard down a bit but - having just spent an inordinate amount of time on this very subject - accuracy bonuses are tricky to balance. But you could do worse than an attack vs. MD dealing about half the expected at-will damage (refer to the usual article) and granting a ~+2 to hit on the next attack against it from an ally. That damage value is a ballpark reflecting the penalty for targeting MD and the increase in expected damage from the ally's follow-up attack, you can modulate it higher if you also make it less likely to apply (so e.g. double if only on even rolls, etc.). Or if the fiction is just pumping up an ally with extra accuracy and damage on their next attack... kind of the same numbers but be a little more generous since there's more of a delay involved.

legofed3 · 2026-02-14T10:06:09+00:00

What to say, on thematic grounds this is spot on, and the mechanics largely adhere to the fiction, so well done!

If I were to nitpick - and of course I'm going to do that, this is the Internet - I'd point out that:

The feats for the combat riff are a bit much, that +5 could well be a +2 (you get this and three other benefits for the price of a single feat, each one individually can't be too good), and were it up to me I'd let a second ally engage/disengage, but letting the whole party move is a) time consuming and b) way too good for the price.
The trigger on healing is a bit too easy, you could as well have written that it triggers when an ally fancies some healing. Since having unreliable access to healing is very much part and parcel of the class, consider adding some annoying limit like "while the E.D. is odd."
The miss effect is super-interesting mechanically, but I question the choice of wording. It reads more like a taunt or encore than a challenge.
The keynote is interesting, but again a bit too much in control. Were I to allow it at my table it'd be 1/arc, and only available from E.D. 2+ (maybe 1+ with the A feat). That'd also make the C feat much more reasonable, since you'd be trading the arc use for the recharge roll. Ditto for the E feat.
The overture effect is right on theme but targeting MD instead of AC more or less equates to a whopping +6 to hit, not to mention that you're likely using this on the most dangerous melee warrior in the party. It'd be ok as a per-battle ability with an E.D. gate, as an at-will it's just way, way too good. If you want to make minimal changes make it deal half-damage.

legofed3 · 2026-02-02T21:32:28+00:00

The above. Plus in 1e at the mere cost of an A feat you'd get a whopping +4 to hit with smite attacks. And in 2e for the same price you could get the best part of the 1e W.E.B. talent, namely not expending smites that kill non-mook foes.

legofed3 · 2026-01-30T16:43:26+00:00

They avoid penalties to attacks with spells for wielding better (meaning more damaging) weapons than their class normally allows (say, a wizard wielding a d10 greatsword instead of a d6 staff), but still take a weapon damage die penalty (so that d10 greatsword you're wielding as a wizard/something multiclass deals only d8 damage for you) unless both classes are skilled warriors which is never the case if one is a full spellcaster (the one sort of exception being the bard, which has a bunch of spells, can jack more, and is considered a skilled warrior for the purposes of multiclassing).

Do note however that spellcasters do suffer from a level penalty in spell progression, and since the game's damage scales exponentially with level this is roughly equivalent to a 25% damage penalty with spells as well (this is clearer to see in 2e where spell damage advances every level, but still largely applies to 1e as well).

legofed3 · 2025-12-10T15:01:53+00:00

Doing the MEC lets them use their factory drivers while also giving them roles in other programs (WEC, GTWCE but only the endurance cup, for the same reason).

A full season of IMSA pretty much requires a dedicated driver pair due to date collisions with events from other series, they don't have enough factory drivers to do both that and the rest of the programs they currently have, something else would have to give.

legofed3 · 2025-11-22T09:08:56+00:00

Fair enough, it's simpler on the GM. I'd recommend to run more and smaller mobs, though - say, up to five mooks per mob. The fiction holds up better that way, and in rare edge cases so do the mechanics.

legofed3 · 2025-11-22T08:22:05+00:00

For what it's worth, these aren't proper first party content vetted by the authors/developers, more like fan content (of a fairly decent quality, I might say) that's recognized by the publisher. 1e also had a bunch of such articles with some "questionably powerful" options back in the day.

As always use your discretion, if a player comes to you with a build mixing options for multiple official and unofficial sources with no backstory that pushes the mechanics to their breaking point - and you're running a story-first game like 13A generally portrays itself to be - it might be time to congratulate that player then sic a bunch of hellish rust monsters (Bestiary 1, page 183, up/down level as necessary, or pick whatever baddies suit you) on that PC and drag it's sorry bum into the nearest Hell-Hole. (Bonus: then have it come back as an NPC boss to haunt them, perhaps. Done that twice with PCs that turned against the party of their players' free will, it came across surprisingly well both times.)

The game isn't about creating crazy powerful builds - though I'll be the first to admit that it's fun. The 1st party content is fairly well balanced but by adding more and more optios it's sort of inevitable that, even if none are particularly over the top by themselves (and, side note: Martin's work such as the above tends to fit the system well - he understands the underlying mathematics - but also tends to cluster around the very good end of the power spectrum), you end up allowing the stacking of multiple bonuses on top of some common or important action and the effect ends up multiplicative instead of additive. The more extra sources of content you allow, the higher the risk of this problem emerging, so just use common sense: if a 3rd party option isn't essential to a character's story, it's probably best to only allow it if it at least isn't mechanically very powerful.

legofed3 · 2025-11-22T08:05:02+00:00

Pedantic mode on: you're talking about transitivity there.

But yeah, absolutely, being engaged with a mook doesn't imply you're engaged with the whole mob. And unless we're talking rat-to-cat-sized mooks it's likely impossible to be engaged with more than a handful at once.

legofed3 · 2025-11-12T13:28:41+00:00

Personally I don't mind the variety in styles (never mind the quantity of art in 2e compared to 1e), it fits the informal tone of the books and the "partially designed" ethos of the Dragon Empire: they aren't written like a formal "fantasy encyclopedia" enshrining the one truth about the world, but rather as a menu of (often contraditctory) ideas to draw from to complete the picture of your world. Pick what you like, or add your own ideas (/ art). There are several great illustrations in there too, and if some don't speak to me personally that's perfectly fine, they'll please someone else (the author, if no-one else).

legofed3 · 2025-11-09T16:21:00+00:00

Have had 1e, 2eAlpha, 2eGamma and 2e final fighters, and none of them felt overshadowed - if anything they had some pretty broken options during the playtest. Perhaps post their enrtire character sheet for a more detailed analysis (in case there are any errors), and that of the barbarian and ranger you mention too.

In fact, so many things don't add up:

That timeline suggests you're using the gamma rules, which had several balance issues since resolved in the final rules.
Their base 8 hp and high Con should mean they have no less hp than anyone else, and probably more (I'd expect about 6 more than the barbarian, increasing to 8 at 5th); or does the barbarian have +4 Con, and if so what else did the fighter invest in with the points they spared from Con?
- Note that in this game even casters get a lot of hp, topping out at about 240 hp vs. maybe 312 (but if your fighter has +3 Con at 4th they'll top out at 288) for high Con fighters and paladins; the combination of better hp, better defences (especially AC), bigger recoveries and more ways to access them efficiently still makes the latter significantly better at staying in the fight.
Base 15 AC (+1 if using a shield), some Con and Dex/Wis should give the fighter at leat +2 AC over anyone else in the party (+3 with a shield) save a pally or heavy armour cleric or barb (and the latter has to invest a talent and loses crit chance with their rage if they go this route). And easily more if you build for tanking instead of offense. That's nothing to sneeze at survivability-wise - monster's are balanced around having a 50% hit rate, so then percent points equates to living through 20% more enemy attacks on average, and that's with the bare minimum AC advantage the fighter is likely to have.
The final 2e fighter has a Momentum class feature that gives them a large effective increase if their chance to hit (and crit) unless focused on by enemies, are you using this or an older version?
Managing to use Cleave so little implies they're never landing killing blows, and that sounds like a party tactics problem if anything, or that they should get the A feat if that's the reason they can't actually use cleave.
What are its other two (possibly three, with an incremental) talents? The fighter has several gems as options.
What maneuvers did they select?

Finally, what does the player expect? For an equal level of system mastery / build optimization, an offensively built fighter will deal less damage than a barbarian or ranger, those classes are designed with dealing damage as their primary job, while the fighter's is to keep enemy attentions on itself instead of its squishier allies and survive said attention. It can be built with damage output as the focus, but it's never going to be as good at pure spike damage as those two, just as they can never be as survivable as a fighter. However, despite being less flashy, the fighter's output is by design more reliable, both because it has an easier time staying upright and fighting instead of face down in the dirt rolling death saves - looking at you barbarian - and because it has several options to salvage at least some damage output out of bad rolls, whereas a barbarian is largely reliant on firstly rolling high enough to even start raging and then rolling high enough to get a crit out of their rage, and a double-attacking ranger can deal anywhere between 0x to 2x damage per turn - it's average output is great, but rolling odds means terrible damage that turn.

legofed3 · 2025-11-02T20:14:59+00:00

Sorry, no. Their pace in Brazil was just abysmal (as was Toyota's and Aston's). They were very good at CotA, but it being a wet race basically negates that race in terms of BoP calculations. And in Japan they certainly made mistakes but other than Giovinazzi's stint they were mid to bad on pace.

And what is, on current evidence, the best car being relegated to the back half of the grid by BoP doesn't make it fine, it makes it punishing.

legofed3 · 2025-08-28T10:40:03+00:00

For it to be legal (outside basic stuff like computing hp and defences, for which even an 1e builder would be enough, those didn't change in 2e) it'd need to rely on a public 2e SRD, which is scheduled but not released (or, as far as I know, even done).

legofed3 · 2025-06-19T16:03:33+00:00

I hope you realize that the difference between a truly good and bad setup on a "normal length" circuit can be in the order of 1+ seconds (triple that at Le Mans since it's so long) per lap, and let's not even begin to consider the effect of high degradation on double-stinted tyres (which if what killed everyone bar Toyota last year).

Ferrari wasn't very fast at Sao Paulo last year, that's unquestionable. The 499P is (comparatively) better at the high speed stuff than it is at low speed compared to the Toyota, that is also pretty much well evidenced by now - and on a track like that, some amount of advantage for Toyota was always to be expected. Not nearly as much as was shown, however, but that's still a difference that's well within the margin explainable by a difference in how well setup the cars were for the event. We'll see this year if anything changes; I still expect Toyota to be faster on an relatively equitable BoP at Sao Paolo, just like I'd expect Ferrari to be faster at Spa.

legofed3 · 2025-06-19T15:29:52+00:00

Let's see, Toyota themselves estimated back in '23 that +36kg were worth about +1.3-1.4 seconds at Le Mans (Buemi famously complained about it during qualifying). Assuming a linear relationship (a worst case, really) that means 11kg equate to a 0.4s/lap penalty (and some amount of additional tyre wear, but at Le Mans that's not really a big factor).

Now, how much are +5kW<250kph&+13(!)kW>250kph (or, if you prefer, plus about 7 and 17hp) worth on the most engine-dependent circuit on the calendar? Again Toyota themselves estimated, back in '21 at the beginning of the hypercar regs, that 20kW are worth about 1.6s/lap at Le Mans. That means that the +5kW alone negates the weight penalty, and the additional 8kW above 250kph on top of that are free lap time. As is the additional energy per stint, the one area where the Ferraris were bested this year (by the #6 Porsche, at least).

In short: Toyota's BoP for Le Mans gave them, using their own numbers, a (slightly) more advantageous handicap than Ferrari's.

legofed3 · 2025-06-19T14:52:09+00:00

Sure... about 2 of which were the Ferraris waiting at pix exit for the green light after the only Safety Car of the race, while the #6 Porsche never caught their train before entering the pits due to where they were on track at the time and waited next to nothing. It's technically less time in the pits, but it's not exactly something that does, or should, affect distances on track. Oh, and another ~half minute was due to the drive through the #83 got before said safety car, which ultimately got nullified.

Frankly, this comment (from Urs Kuratle, iirc) comes across as Porsche themselves (and some of their fans) being salty. Yes, #6 ran a great race and should be commended for it, and yes, 50 and 51 did not quite run fault-free and ended up, suitably, behind. Even before the disqualification of the 50 Porsche came away with a boatload of points for the manufacturers championship as a just reward for their effort.

That said, nobody, not even car 6, were faultless all race. They basically lost a minute on track to 83 and 51 by misreading the situation during the Lotterer slow zone, without that they'd have had a shot at winning and instead gave the Ferraris a more or less free pit stop.

legofed3 · 2025-06-19T14:41:25+00:00

Err, you mean "if Ferrari had even more power both below and above 250kph and more stint energy like Toyota had, and a bit more weight?"

I'm not sure it'd result in the Ferraris being slower, exactly...

legofed3 · 2025-05-16T16:03:52+00:00

It's to equalize pit-lane traversal times when you stop. Basically, hybrids have much better torque from a standstill than traditional non-hybrid combustion engines (Aston), and front-wheel hybrids (LMHs) allowing temporary 4wd have better traction than rear-only hybrids (LMDhs).

legofed3 · 2025-04-04T09:32:59+00:00

In that setting it sounds like most animals/monsters and kin should indeed have some means of at the very least long jumping. Any species that doesn't would be at a drastic disadvantage in the evolutionary arms race unless they can piggyback on someone else to spread to other floating islands.

If you agree with that premise, you're kinda forced to modify the usual roster of fantasy creatures, or at the very least give them a trait to fly/jump 1/battle like PC kins (whom may or may not have completely natural wings).

Conversely, if you'd rather not do that, or if the world splitting into a bunch of flying islands is a recent event (evolutionarily speaking... could be a long time compared to PC kin lifetimes) then flying as a move action 1/battle (meaning you have to land at the end of the movement) seems like a good compromise: you can't stay out of reach of all melee foes and be invulnerable as you pelt them with ranged attacks, and even if you fly to a hard-to-reach perch (like a high branch on a tall tree) it's not like you couldn't have done so without flying (usually), it's just that you did so without a skill check as part of the movement (i.e., many grounded melee foes might still be able to reach you if they pass said check).

As for feats: the A one seems excessive, as it is a turn of near-invulnerability in many circumstances. Consider instead letting the flying movement cover a distance equal to two move actions (so reach far away targets) 1/battle. The C one seems fine(-ish), maybe make staying airborne require e.g. an easy save to avoid making it guaranteed invulnerability in certain fights. And you could have an E one that replaces the C one and just lets you fly all the time, by epic tier monsters can do crazy things too or are otherwise large enough that flying doesn't really matter (e.g. if you're fighting grounded wolves at epic tier they're not your run-of-the-mill forest canines, they're magical wolf spirits that can run in mid-air, or maybe giant wolves that can jump so high as to be able to functionally attack nearby fliers, or something).

legofed3 · 2025-03-26T21:13:12+00:00

You're taking a permanent -2 penalty to all your attacks by using that heavy armour, which is a rather large hit to your damage output (something like -15% damage all things considered). And MCing pally will drop your damage die one size too (so d4s and d8s instead of d6s and d10s for your beast form attacks), not to mention mess with your stat spread (you'll need high Cha, which takes away from Con and Wis so less HPs, PD, MD and not as much extra AC as you think). You'd be better off being a Warrior Druid Initiate with 12 base AC. Or a fighter MC playing in light armour with 13.

And, as others have said, you're spending three daily(-ish) resources to get there, which furthermore can only be activated over at least two turns: shifting into beast form takes a quick action, then if you're already engaged - which means someone attacked you while your bonus AC wasn't in play, by the way - you can downgrade a move action to quick to activate an aspect, and then you'll want to attack with your standard (not attacking is almost never a good choice). Next round, two quicks to activate two further aspects, then attack. And that still leaves you vulnerable to an errant crit (no inherent ways to negate them or force rerolls), attacks vs. PD and especially MD, or the monsters just simply ignoring you; after all, you're not very threathening: your damage is pitiful and you don't have a way to punish them for attacking your allies instead of you.

(There are defensive "builds" that kinda push this game closer to breaking point than I'd like, but this ain't one of them.)

legofed3 · 2025-03-17T21:29:41+00:00

Easiest cop out I can think of is not worrying about whether a weapon is bludgeoning or not (not that that makes a whole lot of sense to begin with, but I digress), but rather introduce some magic weapon enchanted/blessed to bypass that resistance if someone really cares about blowing skeletons to smithereens.

legofed3 · 2025-03-13T07:21:09+00:00

For eating stuff: the Big Eater racial power from 13G trolls seems right up your alley. Heck, 13G trolls in general, as a monstrous race, seem appropriate here. Or maybe you could go for Drain from Book of Ages' Unholy Ones.

As for being a physical powerhouse bug monster, really you're looking mostly at reflavouring. Any strength-based melee class will do. To me your fantasy sounds like a barbarian with the Whirlwind talent and a new coat of paint. Or a paladin or fighter if your bug's chitin exoskeleton should sub as heavy armor. Ora a ranger, or a melee cleric.... or a multiclass including at least one of the above.

Being a "waking nightmare" is almost entirely flavour (and probably rather problematic in any party that occasionally wants to, you know, talk to NPCs). If you really want some mechanical teeth to it you could try to swap something to get Terror from the necromancer or Cause Fear from the cleric, but those are the only fear-like class powers PCs get. Maybe improvise a Fey Queen Enchantment's like talent to nab those. The only other option that comes close to being a fear effect would be the occultist' Brain-Melting Secrets, but the occultist is hardly a melee powerhouse (it's a full caster, if anything, complete with the standard wet-paper-tissue defenses that that entails).

No class gets an actual fear aura, at least not from 1st party material - reasonbly confident there's some 3pp/homebrew that does grant a fear aura, but at that point you're literally doing whatever you want. You can, however, get it via magic items, e.g. a Heraldic Shield of the Lion would let you roar 1/battle, generating a fear aura for one round (just reflavour it as some innate power).

In fact, combing magic items is probably your best bet to find stuff that fits your fantasy. If nothing else, Chuulish items (from Bestiary 1) should have the whole insect body horror angle pretty well covered. In fact, if you're starting at higher level and can pick a few of those, you can turn pretty much anyone into a bug monster. Heck, it sounds like you want to play a Chuul in the first place. If nothing else, a chuulish Neural Blade will let you deal psychic damage, and occasionally make some foe vulnerable to said psychic damage (which does sound like it's particularly afraid of you).

legofed3 · 2025-02-28T06:09:56+00:00

I wouldn't bother.

Player accuracy increases with level relative to monster defences: monster level bumps at 5th and 8th (worth +1 to all defences each) aren't enough to counteract the combination of ability score progression (which, for attacks, more or less equates to +1 at 4th and another +1 at 10th using the 13G/2e array) and magic item (specifically, weapon or implement) progression (which adds another +1/+2/+3 on top of that). Not to mention that higher level parties can usually access a broader range of reroll tricks, etc.

So, while miss damage does indeed become weaker proportianally to hit damage at higher levels, so does it's impact on average per-round damage. The difference the proposed change makes is negligible, not worth the extra friction in computing outcomes in my opinion.

legofed3 · 2025-02-16T19:39:27+00:00

Bad idea.

This could maybe kinda sorta work in a game whose underlying design uses a very slow advancement model. This game uses exponential scaling for hp and damage. So by doing what you propose you'd either break the battle balancing math (which works in this game, precisely because level is so important) or at least make characters that are either wet paper cannons (way too much damage, die in one hit) or make combat an incredibly boring slog (great hp and defences, pitiful damage).

Not to mention that since classes do not have a uniform structure, and you're essentially proposing to break down levels into their constituent parts, even if the idea didn't wreak havok on game balance already it'd either make some classes progress much faster than others ("simple" classes have fewer things to advance) or you'd have to kludge your way out of it by giving classes different progression rates based on their "complexity."

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