I've been loving all the Play by Post going on around here lately, and as some of the other games are slowing a bit it's given me the opportunity to get another one going. I thought for a switch we'd do something a little different.
You see, I've always been a bit bitter that Polyhedron got axed. I always loved those minigames! I owned most of them before the end. I thought it would be a nice homage to them to brush one off and run a game of it here on Paizo!
So here it is: Mecha Crusade.
I'll be looking for somewhere between 2-4 players. It will be rules light with very little in the way of dice rolling and much more in the way of vivid description and stylish action. I'm going to run it as a Prestige game, meaning that rather than running the fairly bland D20 modern classes I'll be using the Mecha Crusade Prestige Classes as classes. Just ignore the prereqs and assume you have the minimum of what you need to get the class to work. Back issues of the Polyhedron are available--and highly recommended for tooling together your mecha and picking class etc. It's fairly cheap for those who haven't bought it. I certainly highly recommend it. A lot of people probably already have it kicking around somewhere anyway.
For those unfamiliar with the story, the feel of it is very Gundam in it's politics and Robotech in its spaceborn arial acrobat dogfights between giant robots. The premise is that Earth has colonized the rest of the solar system, but as natural resources have run ever shorter Earth has begun to squeeze the outer systems in an iron grasp. The systems have declared their independance and a civil war has begun.
Anyhow more specific detail will be forthcoming, but for now I'm interested in answering some questions and getting a sense of who's interested in playing. I'll probably post the generics of the classes in a bit here. Also I'll post a bit on what mecha designs are around to pick from and then give you a number of points to use to upgrade and customize them.
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Heh, I missed this thread.
I'm in if you'll have me Grim.
As I said in the other thread, tending towards the Mecha Ace class at this stage, but I'll look further at the other classes.
A few questions; I have the Mecha Crusade issue of Poly. I have my 3 core rule D&D books. What else do I need to know in order to make a character (ie, I don't have the d20 Modern or d20 Future rulebooks).
Are the characters Imperials or Rebels - sorry, Earth or Colonies?
I'm sure I'll more questions soon!
A few questions; I have the Mecha Crusade issue of Poly. I have my 3 core rule D&D books. What else do I need to know in order to make a character (ie, I don't have the d20 Modern or d20 Future rulebooks).
The only forseeable kink is feats. I hadn't thought about that until just now. My first suggestion would be to grab feats out of the Modern SRD. I haven't really looked at it, so I'm not sure how wonderful an idea that is or not. I'll head over and look and post back.
Are the characters Imperials or Rebels - sorry, Earth or Colonies?
I was thinking a unit of former Earth forces gone turncoat in support of the Colonies. That was my first thought.
Grimcleaver, let me know if you'd like me to post a list of the Mecha Crusade prestige classes along with a short description. I should be in a position to do so in an hour or two.
I think that will be great help to everyone. Thanks!
Here's the Feats from the SRD Modern.
It seems like they'll work okay.
I think for the time being, I'd like to limit the Prestige Classes to the ones in the article, since there's a lot of other Prestige Classes in the Modern book that really wouldn't work and I don't want to have to pick and choose through every one they do list.
Oh and certainly, welcome to everyone who's mentioned an interest so far!
Hopefully I'll get more info up in a bit.
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Mecha Crusade Classes
Mecha Shock Trooper
Excel at mecha vs mecha combat – particularly melee combat
Physical prowess is paramount.
Brave, some would say suicidal, elite warriors.
Mecha Ace
Hot-shot pilots of the mecha world.
They excel at the art of maneuver, and ranged combat.
Perfect eye-hand coordination is a must.
Cyborg
Soldiers – and usually mecha pilots – with high tech machinery implanted into their bodies.
As they progress in level, they acquire more and better implants.
Weapon Designer
Combining the ability to pilot a mecha with an unparalleled knowledge of what makes them work.
Custom designing their own mecha systems, and “souping up” their mecha for maximum performance.
Sleeper Agent
They chase the choicest of espionage prizes: mecha weapon designs and prototype mechas.
Many hidden talents, abilities and memories waiting to be unlocked.
Wing Captain
An officer trained in small unit and mecha tactics, leading a small mecha unit
Masters of strategy and tactics.
Natural leaders.
My god. I'm in too. I just added two more things to my UC (read: TRUE) Gundam collection, and I've been dying to play. Make me an ace pilot!
Just no newtypes.
Well it looks like we have our players. Cool. So here's where it gets interesting. Erm, I have been forced to reorder the Mecha Crusade issue. It should be here in a week or so (3-6 to ship, then an additional 1-2 days for delivery).
As soon as it gets here I will supply points and starting mecha availability. Until then it'd be cool to talk character concepts and what people would like to see from the game. It was asked what side we'd be playing on. On one hand I had what I thought was a fun idea of having everyone be turncoats from the Earth side of things. The benefits of this are that Earth (as I recall--no magazine to reference heh heh) has the better mecha and better training for its pilots, but is outnumbered tremendously. This would put the better mecha and training in the hands of the PCs. Granted I could be completely wrong, since the Mecha Crusade article came out who-knows-how long ago.
But assuming I'm not wrong, that means Earth-siders disaffected from their ironfisted ideology by various things, who have defected to the colonies to aid them in their war effort. What do you guys think of that? Too restrictive? Does this give you enough to make a character with?
Okay, so I think we've got our group:
Freehold DM
Valegrim
Mothman
PulpCruciFiction (I can't get over that name...)
If that works for everyone.
In response to the question, yeah we'll have two game threads when the game starts, a discussion thread and the game thread. I figure we can start those once we have characters and all--that way we can still talk and ask out of character questions and leave the game board for just in character stuff.
If there's any other questions anyone has, or just stuff I've missed--a lot goes on and sometimes I miss something. So yeah. More info as it comes.
Grimcleaver, preferred character / ability score creation method? 3d6 rolls, 28 point buy, some other?
I tend to go for 4d6 keep the 3 highest, roll 7 times keep the 6 highest. Allocate the resulting numbers to whichever stats you want.
I find point-buy results in characters that feel too optimized, with mostly identical numbers with the one or two high numbers they want in their key abilities.
Dice keep the stats different and fresh, and with the low dice discards and the low roll discard you usually end up with a nice generous spread of stats. My experience is most folks don't end up with anything lower than a 10, most of their stats are in the 12-14 range with one or two nice high rolls. That's been about perfect for me.
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I tend to go for 4d6 keep the 3 highest, roll 7 times keep the 6 highest. Allocate the resulting numbers to whichever stats you want.
I find point-buy results in characters that feel too optimized, with mostly identical numbers with the one or two high numbers they want in their key abilities.
Dice keep the stats different and fresh, and with the low dice discards and the low roll discard you usually end up with a nice generous spread of stats. My experience is most folks don't end up with anything lower than a 10, most of their stats are in the 12-14 range with one or two nice high rolls. That's been about perfect for me.
Hey Grim, sounds cool. I actually emailed you a (very) first draft character and character concept (using point buy - but I know what you mean about "optimized" ... I'll roll stats and re-create.
The character I emailed (to your crypttales address) has A LOT of questions, since Ive never created a d20 Modern character before .. and its a little differnt to the SRD anyway, given that we're doing a prestige game.
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It was asked what side we'd be playing on. On one hand I had what I thought was a fun idea of having everyone be turncoats from the Earth side of things. The benefits of this are that Earth (as I recall--no magazine to reference heh heh) has the better mecha and better training for its pilots, but is outnumbered tremendously. This would put the better mecha and training in the hands of the PCs. Granted I could be completely wrong, since the Mecha Crusade article came out who-knows-how long ago.
But assuming I'm not wrong, that means Earth-siders disaffected from their ironfisted ideology by various things, who have defected to the colonies to aid them in their war effort. What do you guys think of that? Too restrictive? Does this give you enough to make a character with?
Sounds good to me.
Theres an implication that Earth would start out with better mechas and pilots. The population of Earth far outnumbers the colonies, and their military is mightier too. The colonies have access to more raw materials and probably a better manufacturing base. They also have the advantage of holding space, but as the three main colonies (Lunar, Mars and Europa IIRC) are pretty spread out and semi-independant, thats not as great an advantage as it seems.
As for campaign direction - up to you Grimcleaver. But much as I like the idea of mecha to mecha combat, I'd like for there to be more than that. Much as the character concept I have in mind will be pretty useless outside of a mech, I'd like to see - well, adventures outside of the mechs! And I like exploration and alien contact themes in a scifi game too, maybe it would be possible to work those in?
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Character concept (cliche warning!)
A young girl, Ashura Yami, was recruited by the Earth military as a student, due to her uncanny reflexes and affinity with machines.
She was trained up as a hotshot mech pilot (Mecha Ace), but soon after graduating she stumbled across some classified information suggesting that Earth Force was behind the "accident" that punctured one of the Luna colony domes and left thousands dead. Along with other members of her elite unit, she defected to join the Colonial Reistance.
She is a confident and arrogant pilot, sure of her own ability in the cockpit, but outside her mech she is still something of a naive teenage girl.
Haha, not too cliched for you all? No-one here has major issues with transvirtuals?
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Hey hey fellas, just as an aside they incorporated almost everything out of Mecha Crusade into d20 Future. They even expanded on it a bit in d20 FutureTech. Just FYI. I now return you to your discussion. :)
Kinda ... but some stuff is done differently. At a glance it seems that mecha and mecha components are gained by way of Purchase DCs rather than the Build Points in Mecha Crusade. And it looks like the MC advanced classes have been amalgamated into one new advanced class.
Also, rather than just saying ALL mecha stuff is available, its divided up into Progress Levels. Just some things to be aware of.
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Ok, so I rolled stats using the method you proposed Grimcleaver … and they turned out to be remarkably similar (only slightly better) than the ones I came up with using point buy. Now I feel like I must have cheated or something!
Anyway, for the sake of transparency;
Set One: 3, 1, 5, 1
Set Two: 6, 3, 5, 6
Set Three: 4, 2, 3, 1
Set Four: 2, 2, 1, 2
Set Five: 3, 6, 5, 3
Set Six: 4, 5, 4, 6
Set Seven: 3, 3, 6, 5
Discarding lowest from each set then picking the best six sets I end up with 17, 15, 14, 14, 9, 9
Set One: 3, 1, 5, 1
Set Two: 6, 3, 5, 6
Set Three: 4, 2, 3, 1
Set Four: 2, 2, 1, 2
Set Five: 3, 6, 5, 3
Set Six: 4, 5, 4, 6
Set Seven: 3, 3, 6, 5
Discarding lowest from each set then picking the best six sets I end up with 17, 15, 14, 14, 9, 9
Looks good. I have to say, this is the first time anyone's actually unveiled every single diceroll. Wow. Anyhow I'm just waiting on the magazine showing up. Until then if anyone has any questions I'll be glad to field them. So far it looks like we've got two Aces and a Sleeper Agent. Cool.
As far as the game having to do with other things beyond mecha combat, be assured my games very seldom are pure slugfests. Granted aliens are a little beyond the scope of things, but certainly there will be a good deal of politics and intrigue as well as exploration and cat and mouse manuvering. Granted the game's a war drama--but that doesn't mean just grinding through countless scores of faceless badguys. It should be fun.
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Heh. Well, I've rarely rolled up a character away from the careful eye of a DM, so I thought I'd best be completely transparent.
Looking forward to the game, should be fun.
While I don't have the time to type out huge slabs of text from the magazine, if anyone needs more info from Mecha Crusade on the class they're interested in, I can probably email you enough info to create a first level character (in conjunction with the d20 modern rules). Post your email address here if that would be useful to you.
Wow, everyone's really rolling on this! I JUST filled the holes in my Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory collection today, and am currently watching the whole series. I'm digging through back issues of dungeon looking for mecha crusade- I'll post my rolls shortly. At first, I thought about making perhaps my favorite character from the Gundam universe- but then I started having flashbacks to my first days in D&D when everyone was making Drizzt clones. I'll have an original character up very soon- thanks for starting this up!
Grimcleaver, preferred character / ability score creation method? 3d6 rolls, 28 point buy, some other?I tend to go for 4d6 keep the 3 highest, roll 7 times keep the 6 highest. Allocate the resulting numbers to whichever stats you want.
I find point-buy results in characters that feel too optimized, with mostly identical numbers with the one or two high numbers they want in their key abilities.
Dice keep the stats different and fresh, and with the low dice discards and the low roll discard you usually end up with a nice generous spread of stats. My experience is most folks don't end up with anything lower than a 10, most of their stats are in the 12-14 range with one or two nice high rolls. That's been about perfect for me.
Hey, Grim, that's almost exactly how I roll- but I add an extra disposable roll for bad luck's sake. Great minds...
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A general question regarding your take on Prestige Class games such as this one Grimcleaver - how are you handling class pre-requistes? Do we take as many of the prerequisites as we can "legally" when creating the first level prestige character? Do we get all the prerequisites as bonus feats / skill points? Do we get only the prerequisites which would be legal for a first level character as bonus?
For example, Mecha Ace has as pre-requisites the Mech Operation feat and 6 ranks in Pilot. In creating my character I've assumed the Mech Operation feat is a bonus feat (call it a class feature - after all, it's an essential feature of the class!). I've taken (paid for) 4 ranks in Pilot (the max a normal first level character would be allowed to take) - is this the right approach?
Consider prerequisites free but transparent (if that makes sense). For example you have +6 Piloting for free, but if you want to raise it to a +7 when you get to third level you'd have to pay for the six transparent levels first before you could buy the seventh. Ditto with Feats. You have them, and can use them, but if you want other feats where the class feats are prerequisite, you have to first buy the feat to "really" have it before you can get the next one in the chain. That make sense?
Character Packages--
Characters may begin with either the Bismark or Dimension Zero design mechas. These represent the elite mecha in the Earth forces arsenal.
Additional BP (build points) 10,000 for upgrades.
An installed component may be traded out for half it's build point cost, so a set of K-2E Kestrel Maneuver Wings which cost 2000 build points can be removed giving the character an additional 1000 build points to spend.
In addition all personel are granted a Commando Carbine with collapsable stock and shoulder harness to carry in case of crash or out of mecha ops, an armored flight suit with modular pieces for emergency conversion into an EVA flight suit. In addition to personal survival kits, repair tools and portable communications arrays. Permission to obtain heavy weapons is granted with completion of special waivers and the okay of the senior officer.
Other special equipment may be available upon request.
I humbly and heartily apologize for my silence in this endeavor, real life stuff came up that I had to handle first. Here are my die rolls for my character!
Roll 1: 6, 4, 3, 6
Roll 2: 6, 2, 1, 4
Roll 3: 5, 3, 4, 1
Roll 4: 5, 2, 2, 1
Roll 5: 5, 3, 4, 2
Roll 6: 6, 5, 4, 3
Roll 7: 6, 6, 4, 2
I've decided to go geek and make a weapon designer. He'll have low charisma (geek), but he'll be great at making alterations on the fly and a passable pilot. He'll probably critique enemy suits while he's shooting them down. Maybe he'll have an awkward crush on the ace pilot(still want to play a transvirtual?)!
Character Packages--
Characters may begin with either the Bismark or Dimension Zero design mechas. These represent the elite mecha in the Earth forces arsenal.
Additional BP (build points) 10,000 for upgrades.
An installed component may be traded out for half it's build point cost, so a set of K-2E Kestrel Maneuver Wings which cost 2000 build points can be removed giving the character an additional 1000 build points to spend.
In addition all personel are granted a Commando Carbine with collapsable stock and shoulder harness to carry in case of crash or out of mecha ops, an armored flight suit with modular pieces for emergency conversion into an EVA flight suit. In addition to personal survival kits, repair tools and portable communications arrays. Permission to obtain heavy weapons is granted with completion of special waivers and the okay of the senior officer.
Other special equipment may be available upon request.
Shouldn't that be a Dimension Knight? Thanks for the tip on where Mecha Crusade appears, Mothman!
*faceslap* Yeah...Dimension Knight. Templar Zero. Dimension Knight. Sorry.
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Sorry also for my extended silence - I've been running back and forth between Boston and Jersey for the past week. Here are the rolls I've come up with:
Roll 1: 5, 4, 3, 1
Roll 2: 6, 6, 3, 1
Roll 3: 6, 4, 3, 3
Roll 4: 3, 3, 2, 1
Roll 5: 5, 3, 3, 1
Roll 6: 6, 6, 5, 1
Roll 7: 5, 4, 2, 1
I'm thinking my character will have worked mainly in analytics and infiltration in the past (focus on Intelligence and Dexterity) - he's familiar with mechas and their operation through his study of theoretical tactics to defeat them in combat. He's originally from the colonies, but first worked as a loyalist to Earth, only defecting after beginning to realize that their government manipulated his mind.
I like all the concepts so far. People can either send their full characters to me at crypttales@yahoo.com or post them here, or do a little of both and mail me the raw mechanics with the rest posted here. If anyone has any questions about the setting, wants any descriptions or extra info on anything, or needs any mechanics info just toss 'em out.
So far this is looking really cool. I'm getting excited about this game. Thanks all!
Thank YOU Grim. Should have my character done in the next couple of days ... any advice on a good character sheet?
Hey, anymore word from Valegrim - was he our fourth?
Maybe he'll have an awkward crush on the ace pilot(still want to play a transvirtual?)!
heh. I think I can handle it. Lets just keep it at the awkward stage for now shall we? ;-)
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Consider prerequisites free but transparent (if that makes sense). For example you have +6 Piloting for free, but if you want to raise it to a +7 when you get to third level you'd have to pay for the six transparent levels first before you could buy the seventh. Ditto with Feats. You have them, and can use them, but if you want other feats where the class feats are prerequisite, you have to first buy the feat to "really" have it before you can get the next one in the chain. That make sense?
Super green!
Characters may begin with either the Bismark or Dimension Knight design mechas. These represent the elite mecha in the Earth forces arsenal.
Additional BP (build points) 10,000 for upgrades.
An installed component may be traded out for half it's build point cost, so a set of K-2E Kestrel Maneuver Wings which cost 2000 build points can be removed giving the character an additional 1000 build points to spend.
Wow! Gargantuan Mecha... this is SO cool guys. I thought I'd have to make do with my Large sized 10 K training Harridan, this is so much cooler.
Lucky we got "assigned" to that elite mission before we ... um, hightailed, huh? This is gonna be fuuuun...
Zoink! Malfuncions...
*sigh* give me a minute...
EDIT: Yeah...okay forget the Dimension Knight. I hadn't realized it was Voltron or I wouldn't have put it on the menu. They're out there, but I don't think they'd work for a PC since they require five pilots. Thanks for noticing that. My bad.
Sorry. Assume you all have the Personal Firearms Proficiency with every class. Exotic firearms feats for the various heavy weapons listed on pg. 48 can be purchased with either your standard character feats or with bonus feats.
Both the flight and EVA suits are medium armor, the armor list is on pg. 49.
Sorry. Assume you all have the Personal Firearms Proficiency with every class. Exotic firearms feats for the various heavy weapons listed on pg. 48 can be purchased with either your standard character feats or with bonus feats.
Both the flight and EVA suits are medium armor, the armor list is on pg. 49.
Loud and clear on the update parameters Command
Okay, put me down for a Bismark. It has what I need(pun). I'll trick it out to make it into a recon unit. 10,000 points makes me happy!