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Perhaps the single most significant thing Paizo is trying with this mech playtest is the mech point (MP) system. While clearly related to how they've handled starship budgets, the actual details of the system differ rather dramatically. Given how central the budget is to mechs, since it directly or indirectly influences everything about them, it's worth taking some time to thoroughly analyze how it functions in various contexts. I'm going to go over how it changes as a party levels up given a few different ways of distributing it so we can all have a better understanding of how this system actually works.
MP Cost and Budgeting
Every component in the mech playtest has its cost determined by tier. Everything costs some multiple of the mech's tier; 1 MP per tier, or 2, or 0.5, and so on. Weapons technically have their own level separate from the mech's that can be higher or lower, but for the moment we'll ignore that.
Because all mech components have a cost per tier, the mech's total cost can be expressed in MP per tier. Given the same equipment, the absolute number of MP spent on a mech will change with its tier, but the MP spent per tier will remain constant. A tier 1 mech built with 20 MP and a tier 10 mech built with 200 MP both cost 20 MP per tier. Adding or removing components to either mech will take or give different amounts of MP in absolute terms, but will have the same effect in terms of MP per tier.
MP per tier (MPT) is thus a way of looking at the budget without needing to think about the actual tier of the mech. For instance, instead of thinking about how much a gatling gun costs at a given tier, we can simply consider that it costs 3 MP per tier. If we want to build a mech with 20 MPT, this tells us we will have 17 MPT left over if we give it a gatling gun.
Some of this may seem obvious after a moment's thought, but it really is a very useful thing to keep in mind. To see why, imagine a mech built at tier 1 for a level 1 party. It has however many MP spent on its features, and has a certain starting MP per tier. If you increase the mech's tier as the party levels up but make no other changes, its MPT tells you how your budget is changing. If the MPT is constant, your mech's cost is increasing at the same rate as your budget, and you have no MP left over after upgrading it. If your MPT is increasing, your effective budget is also increasing, and you'll have MP to spend even after fully upgrading your mech's existing equipment. And if your MPT is decreasing, this means your mech is over budget after upgrading it, and you're going to have to make some cuts to make it affordable.
Depending on how many mechs your party has and how you split the budget, all three of those cases are possible.
Assumptions and Implications
There are enough possible variations within this system that a genuinely comprehensive analysis is well beyond anything I am prepared to do within the 3 days or so we've had the playtest. In order to keep things manageable, I'm using the following assumptions.
Unless otherwise stated:
- The party consists of 4 PCs
- Each party member has the same level.
- All party members level up at the same time.
- The party will tend to prefer that their mechs each have as high a tier as possible, and invest in each of them accordingly.
- MP invested in each mech per level is constant; if a party starts by investing a certain amount of MP in a mech, they will invest that much MP in it every level.
- All weapons are the same level as the mech's tier.
- The rounding of fractional values and its ability to make costs rise and fall over budget at odd and even levels is ignored.
APL is the same as the actual average party level with 4 or 5 PCs; while I could have gone with either, 4 PCs makes the math a bit cleaner in some areas. This is the basic reasoning behind the other assumptions as well.
Given 4 equal level PCs, the party has 60 MP per level that can be distributed across 1 to 4 mechs. There is still an enormous variety of possible combinations, so I'm only going to consider a few representative cases.
- The party invests all 60 MP per level into a single mech, with tier = APL+1.
- The party evenly splits the 60 MP 3 ways to maximize the number of mechs at tier = APL.
- The party evenly splits the 60 MP 2 ways, for a pair of stronger mechs, with tier = APL or APL+1.
- The party evenly splits the 60 MP 4 ways, for 1 mech per person, with a tier that is 1 to 5 below APL. As mentioned above, this is not possible at level 1.
A party does not need to evenly split its budget between its various mecha, but I believe the trends that emerge from these four cases will largely cover the remainder.
From here, we can examine how the MP budget actually behaves when trying to advance mechs in each of these cases.
Case 1 - All for One:
One giant robot for everyone.
Why would a party invest in only one mech? Because a single mech with all of the budget to itself will be more powerful than any other individual mech the party can make.
If the assumed party invests all their MP into a single mech, it will always have enough MP to have its tier be APL+1. This is how its MP per tier budget progresses.
At level 1, a single mech will have 60 MP invested in it; while this is the minimum for a tier 3 mech, it is capped at tier 2 by APL. As a tier 2 mech with 60 MP, its MPT budget is 30. When the party levels up, the MP budget increases from 60 to 120, the mech's tier increases from 2 to 3, and the mech's cost increases from 60 to 90. The MP budget has an extra 30 MP, or 10 MPT. Because the budget always increases faster than the cost of the mech's basic design, the overall MPT budget increases with level. By level 20, the mech's effective budget has doubled from 30 MP per tier to 60.
A single mech with the complete budget of the party effectively has a larger budget as the party levels up. This means that a single mech can not only start with more invested in weapons and upgrades than something splitting the pool, but it can invest more in them as it levels up due to its ever increasing budget.
Case 2 - Three Mechateers:
3 mechs for 4 people
Why would a party split the budget evenly across 3 mechs like this? Because this gives the party the most mechs possible with a tier equal to APL.
If the assumed party invests their 60 MP per level evenly into three separate mechs, they will always have 20 MP per tier. This is how its MP per tier budget progresses.
Yes, it is a flat, horizontal line.
Given 3 mechs, 4 PCs, and an evenly distributed budget, the mechs will always have 20 MP per tier. Because all costs scale by tier, the cost of the mech will increase by 20 MP with each tier, while their budget increases by 20 MP with each level. There are no net gains in budget; all new MP is completely used upgrading the mech to its new tier. Unless a party chooses to rebuild the mech and trade something out for something else, the components of these mechs have no inherent reason to change at any point from level 1 to 20. A level 20 mech will be fundamentally the same as it was at level 1, but with better numbers.
I think this is incredibly unfortunate. The mechanics of Starfinder are based around growing as you level up. You don't just have numbers increasing; you gain new abilities every so often as well. However, in this specific case you run into an issue where you have no budget to spare on new abilities, and even if you did, what would you buy? There's no point in investing 20 MP in a mech and only spending 19 of it; there is never a time when the spare 1 MPT will give you access to something new. Everything you could buy with 1 MPT at tier 5 or tier 10 or tier 20, you could buy all the way back at tier 1.
I think this is an issue that could use addressing, but more on that at the end.
Case 3 - Pair Bonds:
2 mechs for 4 people
Why would a party split the budget evenly between two mechs? Because it gives you two mechs with tier equal to APL, or even APL+1. Each mech is more powerful than those of the threeway split, and having two gives the group more flexibility than a single mech.
First, consider this question. If a mech has enough MP invested to be a higher tier, and the party APL is high enough to allow it, is the mech automatically the highest tier it can be? Or can it remain at a lower tier with a budget a bit higher than standard? The answer has a pretty significant effect here.
2 mechs sharing 60 MP will both be 30 MPT mechs at level 1. At level 2, each mech will have 60 MP, which is the minimum for tier 3. Depending on how you answer the question above, it can play out in one of two ways.
In one reading, the mech's tier automatically increases to the highest available value. With this reading, this is how its MP per tier budget progresses.
At level 2, each mech has 60 MP and jumps from tier 1 to tier 3. The mech's costs rise from 30 MP to 90; however, the party only has a budget of 60 MP per mech! They are forced to cut the budget until the mechs are affordable, reducing their budgets to 60 MP and 20 MPT. At level 3, they have 90 MP per mech, and their tier 4 mechs cost 80 MP. As the party continues to level up, their MPT budget gradually increases until it eventually reaches 30 again at level 20.
If a mech is not automatically upgraded to its highest possible tier, then the 2 mechs can remain tier 2, 60 MP mechs at level 2. Their MPT remains fixed at 30. This is functionally identical to case 2 above.
Case 4 - One for All:
Everyone pilots alone, together
Why would a party split their budget enough to give everyone their own mech? Because this gives them the most mechs they can manage, and they're willing to take the loss of raw power per mech for the flexibility that numbers provide.
In practice, this is the most complex of the four representative approaches, and it's also the roughest on the party. This is how the MP per tier budget progresses.
It jumps back up every few levels, but it spends most of its time going down. This means your budget is constantly fluctuating, and you have to rebuild your mech pretty much every level. Your costs increase by 20 MP per tier, while your budget only increases by 15 MP per level. There are a few levels where tier doesn't increase, which is where the MPT jumps back up a bit, but then it drops back down over the next several levels. You're going to have the occasional level where you suddenly have MP to spare, and then spend the next 3 or so levels cutting your budget back to accommodate the mech's increasing tier.
There are other complications. Because the mechs in this approach will always have a lower tier than APL, you can't do this at level 1. Because max tier effectively progresses at three-quarters APL, just like a mechanic's BAB, your mech's actual effectiveness will gradually fall behind.
Depending on your answer to the question posed in case 3, you could potentially keep the mech's tier lower than its budget suggests. Unfortunately, that makes already weak mechs weaker and only delays the problem. Your individual mech needs to increase its tier at some point to remain useful. Whenever that happens, you're going to have to cut something to keep costs down.
Personally, I think that's an issue. I don't think it's a problem to completely redesign your mech every level, but I do think it's a problem to be forced to do so. The alternative is actively limiting your own power, and while some of us may be fine with that, at least circumstantially, is that really desirable as a baseline expectation for something as conceptually common as a full team of mechs?
Yes, I know that combining mechs are expected in the full release, and that it will probably make things a little better here. No, that alone will not actually fix this.
There's also the added fun that the PC will eventually end up stronger than the mech. If a PC in a mech has an effective level equivalent to the mech's tier +3, then the PC in a mech will be the same on paper as the PC out of a mech at level 9. At level 13, they're now ahead of their mech, and the giant machine never catches up.
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Conclusions
In summary, the basic points boils down to the following.
If you build a mech with 20 MPT, you end up in a situation where progression is purely numerical. If you do not actively change the mech's design over time, there will be no change in the scope of its abilities no matter how many tiers you give it. While you can invest 20 MPT and not immediately spend all of it, there's very little reason to do so because everything has a cost per tier. The only reason I can think of for this is that the extra could let you upgrade your weapons to tier+1 level eventually, but you're losing out on the benefits of the unspent MP until then.
If you build a mech with more than 20 MPT, you will eventually hit a point where it has enough MP to be tier = APL+1 instead of tier = APL. Whether or not you are forced to increase the mech's tier when you reach that point changes how mech advancement is handled. If a mech automatically increases in tier whenever it has the budget and APL cap to do so, then many designs will be forced to make some dramatic cuts to stay under budget at some point in their progression. Once that happens, your budget will expand again as you continue leveling up until you reach level 20; I expect but have not confirmed that this will usually result in them reaching the same MP per tier budget that they originally started with. If you start with a large enough investment in a mech that it is always at APL+1, your budget per tier will expand at every level through 20.
If you allow mechs to remain at tier = APL instead of automatically upgrading to APL+1 when their budget gets large enough, you effectively just end up back at the first point.
If everyone in the party wants their own individual mech, everyone will have a mech with a lower tier than the party level. This means you can't do it at level 1. The PCs will also have to constantly redesign their mechs, because costs rise faster than budgets and they need to continuously cut their expenses as a result. On top of that, the PC eventually ends up outright stronger than the mech.
Feedback
To be clear, I think the basic ideas behind the system are wonderful. Major costs scaling per tier gives an easy and immediate way to gauge how much you can reasonably invest in any given system. However, I think it would benefit from having some costs that aren't directly tied to tier. Auxiliary bays would be a great place for this, letting you pay some flat amount for additional capabilities that don't necessarily need to scale in cost or effect with your mech's tier. And much like starships have "systems" distinct from any other major component or expansion bay, mech systems could also be introduced that provide benefits that don't quite fit anywhere else, but that would still be worth paying for.
If there are some fixed-cost options around that are just expensive enough to force an actual, meaningful decision on whether to have them or not, then you now have a way to encourage people to adjust their builds as they level up when they might otherwise have no reason to. They could spend 5 MP or something at level 1 to get the fancy new thing, but that's a pretty significant investment for some builds! Come level 5 or so, maybe not so much.
As for trying to give everyone in the party their own individual mechs, how best to handle that really depends on what the vision of the system is. The easiest way to fix that specifically would be to have the MP per PC level and the minimum MP per Tier be the same, but that has major ripple effects throughout the rest of the system. I do think there needs to be a better way of handling it than constantly redesigning and cutting the budget every single level, but how best to achieve that depends entirely on the desired balance point.
Hithesius, Great post!
I have the same feeling. Im trying to make an adventure for 4pc level 20 characters each using a mech each (similar to Titan fall, Evangelion, Revisions) but, at level 20 all thei can build is 15 tier Mech, that is alot weaker then tier 20 mech (Less health and alot less AC) meaning thei will die alot faster.
The playtest quotes "Mechs are powerful. PCs that are operating mechs appropriate for their level have an Average Party Level 3 levels higher than normal", in this case i don't think that players are using appropriate mech nor using powerful mechs because thei can be alot stronger alone than using a mech.
If this goes on there will be alot of sentai squads.
I was thinking that a solution for this problem is to include cheaper 1 seat frame so that players have more MP per tier available and the removal of minimum Mech MP (or change the scale to alow 300MP mech at level 18 ou more).
Nice analysis. I'm sympathetic to a lot of things you say here (and ran into some of these issues myself when converting Battletech mechs). My two main takeaways from all this are:
PROs:
And it simplifies lots of things:
CONs: ...I'm actually not sure what the cons of this change is. You mentioned "ripple effects", but I'm not immediately seeing anything problematic about going this route... What were your worries here?
I agree with this too. You suggested one way of doing this - having some fixed MP-cost options, like auxiliary systems or mech bay "expansions", which would become more affordable as mechs increased in level. An alternative would be to let the MP contribution per player increase at a slightly faster than linear rate. I'd be happy with either approach.
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Wouldn't that result in 4 tier 20 mechs at level 20 if the mp contribution and minimum mp were same? I mean, what would be benefit of investing into single tier 20 mech with 4 operators then if you could just as well have personal mechs of same power?
I kinda actually like the whole dynamic of party having to choose whether they want persona mechs or any combination of "2 mechs with 2 pilots or one mech with two pilots and two single pilot mechs" between the four pilot mech and four single pilot mechs.
That is just on theory side, I'm gonna playtest these with my players so my opinion might change. Plus even if paizo changes it I'll likely like the final version as well as long they don't erase the whole dynamic of choosing how many mechs party want, allowing level 1 characters to have their own personal mechs doesn't sound too bad to me.
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I'm all for everyone having a Mech, which would require shifting MP values like Porridge said. And I also agree just getting better numbers is not impressive. Mecha need other options/abilities and more diversity. Otherwise great analysis.
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By ripple effects, I mean that fiddling with the budget changes the entire system. If you increase MP per PC level to match minimum MP per tier, party budgets increase by an additional third. The overall power level of mechs thus increases. If you instead decrease the minimum MP to match MP per PC level, you increase the rate at which mech tier increases from APL to APL+1. You also functionally increase everyone's power by letting them have more mechs at APL, but that's a direct and entirely intentional consequence.
They'll probably have to fiddle with things and rebalance accordingly anyway, but it's important to be aware of this.
As for multiple mechs vs a single one, the basics don't really change. Yes, 4 tier 20 mechs can probably do some things better than a single tier 20 mech. You won't be able to customize them as efficiently though, since the budget is split between them, and more of it is taken up on basic necessities like frame and limbs. The way operators give their actions to mechs also means that while the four mechs have an advantage in terms of mobility and reactions, they're not really much better off in terms of offensive capabilities.
4 mechs could be more effective overall, but I don't think its enough to automatically go with them instead of a smaller number of larger-budget mechs.
Wouldn't that result in 4 tier 20 mechs at level 20 if the mp contribution and minimum mp were same? I mean, what would be benefit of investing into single tier 20 mech with 4 operators then if you could just as well have personal mechs of same power?
Not realy, as mentioned above every mech part (except weapons) are tier dependant.
So basiclly what it means is that if you don't change your mech only tier, it will consume your new MP and since MP per PC is linear the budget you had at level 1 is consumed at level 20.Having 1 player Riding alone at level 20 will give him a capped Tier 15 with 300MP and if all player combine will give a Tier 20 with 1200MP or 1500MP, at lower levels this Tier diference is not that great but tier 15 to tier 20 is alot (it affects your AC, HP and SP).
Being solo can create strong but less versatile mechs because players are still limited to their MP per pc, if we break the minimum MP per mech.
Lets do a bit of math about AC
Armor Class = 13 + (1-1/4 the mech’s tier) + bonus from frame +
bonus from upper limbs + bonus from lower limbs
From the start a single rider lost alot of AC because of Tier 15, diference is 18 to 25, 7 points of AC.
Considering JUGGERNAUGHT (41 EAC/43 KAC) vs SKIRMISHER (35 EAC/37 KAC) the AC difference is 6. A player using Vesk monolith III would have (41EAC / 42KAC).
A combatant NPC CR23 (Should be good for Players APL+3 with Mechs) hit +37 High +34 Low; other Mech rider (PVP testing) hits +32
A level 20 players without mech is alot stronger then the same player riding a mech, so why enter one.
If the player builds a mech single rider SKIRMISHER
2(Frame)+1(Lower)+1(Upper)+2(Core), this leaves him with 7MP to choose weapons and Upgrades, lets consider a frost rifle, it will leave 3MP to choose another weapon or upgrade
A 5 player Mech JUGGERNAUGHT
4(Frame)+1(Lower)+1(Upper)+2(Core),this leaves them with 67MP to choose weapons and Upgrades, if every player picks 1 frost rifle, it will leave 47MP to choose more weapons and upgrades
With those points a 5 player mech could have more AC, HP and MP, even without tier difference a 5 player mech is far more superior then a single rider.
I do belive however that 5 player mech should have more Base HP and HP adv
I do like to play different kinds of adventures, the current playtest it's good for Power Rangers adventures but not good for a titanfall/front mission style adventures.
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By ripple effects, I mean that fiddling with the budget changes the entire system. If you increase MP per PC level to match minimum MP per tier, party budgets increase by an additional third. The overall power level of mechs thus increases. If you instead decrease the minimum MP to match MP per PC level, you increase the rate at which mech tier increases from APL to APL+1. You also functionally increase everyone's power by letting them have more mechs at APL, but that's a direct and entirely intentional consequence.
They'll probably have to fiddle with things and rebalance accordingly anyway, but it's important to be aware of this.
As for multiple mechs vs a single one, the basics don't really change. Yes, 4 tier 20 mechs can probably do some things better than a single tier 20 mech. You won't be able to customize them as efficiently though, since the budget is split between them, and more of it is taken up on basic necessities like frame and limbs. The way operators give their actions to mechs also means that while the four mechs have an advantage in terms of mobility and reactions, they're not really much better off in terms of offensive capabilities.
4 mechs could be more effective overall, but I don't think its enough to automatically go with them instead of a smaller number of larger-budget mechs.
That does sound like one way to do it yeah... Like restricting gargantuan mechs to 2-3 pilots minimum and colossal to 4-6 pilots. Well that multiple people have desired and just creating more specific mech equipment that makes players want them really bad but can't afford with single pilot(super duper beam weapons that require all standard actions to fire seem like something fun ;D)
Personally I would rather have a Font Mission style game. Hell with the player progression bit, it is capped by the GM giving out Mecha anyways, so why not just have 1 per player if they want it at proper player level.