Folded Steel thought of the morning is based around character sheets. Current vision is a character sheet with a section that covered your out of mech options that is intended to be covered by the equivalent of your current mech’s sheet when you are suited up. The Enclave (crew equivalent) could even have a Hangar section intended to hold the Mech sheets not in use. Leaning toward an index card size mech sheet, but am not sure if that is big enough.
Folded Steel thought of the morning is based around character sheets.
Folded Steel thought of the morning is based around character sheets.
What would need to be on the mini sheet is the harm boxes that are tied to the components, the component choices available for those slots, the shield track for the mech, and the personal mech information (Model name, nickname, look, etc). It would cover abilities that are only available when the pilots are out of their mechs. (which will dictate how things are organized on the playbook sheet)
Would you not be able to use any of your out-of-mech options while in the mech at all? Are they going to be aimed at social interaction/researching upgrades etc? Are you thinking of the Special Ability section that playbooks get?
I like the idea of the mech suit covering up part of the playbook, gives a feel of the suit enveloping your character.
Are mech systems going to affect the pilots skills at all, maybe a targeting suite giving a bonus to attack rolls as an example. In which case could the skill section be expanded slightly to have a mech column along side it so if it does provide a bonus to something it’s easy to see the pilots skill and the bonus to get the modified total? This may remove the covering idea but may be easier to display total dice available for skills.
I’m guessing you want to avoid having to have 2 complete playbook sheets, 1 for the pilot and one for the mech?
Currently I am split between two thoughts when it comes to actions and want to test both. (each of with cause the mini mech sheets to cover different spots.) The first is that the mech provides bonus dice to your pools that enhance your pilots defaults. I would most likely lower the cap on the actions when you are out of your suit. In this case the mech would cover a section of your abilities that are silo’d off as being not relevant to mech play.
The other option is that Mechs have their own action list, with their own rankings which covers the pilots own action list. Pilots would be able to get bonus dice to their mech pools through playbook abilities.
You hit the nail on the head in regards to why I want to do this and the feel I am going for. Considering I want each Enclave to have access to multiple mechs and most pilots to not have signature mechs (that is an Ace playbook upgrade).
I quite like the idea of it replacing the Pilot abilities but I’m assuming they will be based around non-combat/downtime/social actions which would be of no use during a mission. Bonuses to Dice pools could (hopefully) line up with the Pilots existing pools down the side of the mech card and it’s systems taking up the rest of it?
I think this is an interesting approach. How are you integrating the mechs capabilities, pilot skill(s). Is there overlap with skills? Eg survey for scanning in and out of mech?