Since no one has posted any playtesting experiences yet, I thought I'd sketch a few encounters, and some thoughts about them. All three of these test encounters pit one of the Battletest conversion mechs against 1-2 creatures from the Alien Archive which are in the same ballpark, CR-wise.
Given the p11 estimation of the power level of such a mech, and the fact that Kyokor's have no ranged weapons and start 1000' away, I expected the Atlas to wipe the floor with Kyokor's. Not what happened.
The Atlas spent 5 rounds firing every weapon it had at one of the Kyokor's, but all of the Atlas's weapons do at least some fire damage and the Kyokor's have 30 fire resistance, which roughly halved the damage the Atlas put out. When the Kyokor's finally got into melee in round 6, the Kyokor Multiattacks and Attacks of Opportunity against ranged attacks took the Atlas down to 6 HP, and they destroyed it at the start of round 7.
--Caveat 1. The Kyokor's fire resistance and all of the Atlas's weapons doing part fire damage definitely helped the Kyokor's. But in all 3 mech battles the opponent ended up having some defensive feature (Hardness, Incorporeal) that roughly halved the mech damage, so I'm not sure this isn't what one should expect from a high level opponent.
--Caveat 2. The Atlas doesn't have any melee weapons. And once the Kyokor's closed in, the Atlas incured AOO from the Kyokor's when firing ranged weapons. But even if it did mount a melee weapon, it would have been a bad idea to avoid AOO by just making one melee attack a round (given that it had four operators).
--Caveat 3. The Atlas was built with 440 MP (all the Battletech conversions are within 10% of the minimum MP mark), but 4 20th level PCs are supposed to get a 1200 MP budget. An extra 760 MP would have made the Atlas a more substantial threat. (At a first gloss, that additional MP could give the Atlas a Plasma Sword melee attack, a MK 4 Engine, +50 HP, +40 SP, +2 KAC/+3 EAC, and +3 Fort/Ref.)
But that still would have only bought the Atlas an extra round or so against the Kyokor's, and still wouldn't give it much of a chance against them if the combat started in close quarters.
--Thought 1: It would be nice if there was a slightly firmer tie between Tier and MP (or a maximum MP as well as a minimum MP for a mech of a given tier). As is, gauging the challenge level of a mech based on Tier and # of operators is hard, since the amount of MP (440 vs 1200) can make a big difference to how powerful the mech is.
--Thought 2: Overall, the Atlas seemed really fragile. The Atlas was built to be defensively focused (with Enhanced Shields, Unbreakable Armor, and AC-boosting component choices), but got brought down to 6 HP in one round by a pair of Kyokor's with only slightly better than average rolls.
And while spending 760 extra MP to boost the Atlas's defenses would have helped, the natural boosts (such as those suggested above) would have only bought the Atlas an extra round or so against the Kyokor's, and would still make it hard for an Atlas to take even one of them down if the battle started in close quarters.
On paper, the Hatchetman should be a little outclassesd by the AHAV. In practice, they were pretty much on a par, though the Hatchetman's low HP gave the AHAV the edge.
The most noteable things about this combat was how long it felt. Both sides had Hardness and either fast healing or regenerating shields (with the Hatchetman using PP to futher boost its shields each round), and it felt like a slow 9-round battle of attrition that the AHAV finally won because of the Hatchetman's low HP.
Ironically, given the results of the first battle, this was a case where I was happy the Hatchetman didn't have many HP!
The Marauder should win this on paper, and it did. It sustained almost no damage and dropped the Hallajin in 3 rounds.
--Thought/Question 3: The Hallajin was at a severe disadvantage, because its best spells are mind-affecting (Greater Synaptic Pulse, Synapse Overload, Confusion), but I wasn't sure how to run any of those against the mech (tentatively ruling that the Hallajin didn't have line of effect to the operators). This seemed to really cut down on the Hallajin's options.
--Thought/Question 4: Do the Mech's weapons count as magical? I ruled that they did (and so ruled that, e.g., when the mech did a Fire & Piercing damage attack against it, half of both sources of damage went through). But going the other way would have made the Hallajin last longer (though it still wouldn't have had much of a chance).
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Great report.
I will do the same with my findings but i will build the mechas knowing what enemy it will face. I will consider this because every part of the mecha can be swaped, maybe players work for a certain organization with the resources.
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Very interesting, and this makes me curious how my players will deal with the mech fights I prepared. Those will be mechs vs. many enemies (Troops I built) and 2 mechs vs. 2 mechs (built using the Alien Archive rules + mech changes. PC mechs vs. PC rules mechs is looking too punishing/uninteresting. The lower attack bonuses and higher AC would make fights pretty uneventful from what I calculated...)
I don't think their attacks count, and should count, as magic. But it makes sense to introduce mechanic options to make it so. Or explicitely make all mechs part magic. But they should also get abilities to get through other DRs, like alignment.
And your ruling on the line of effect is correct:
A mech blocks line of effect to and from its operators.
@IvoMG: Looking forward to reading how things go with your group. Building in anticipation of the enemy would definitely change the balance of power in fights like these.
@Mimski: Yeah, I recall reading somewhere that mechs were "techno-magical", which was what made me unsure about whether their attacks were supposed to be considered magical or not. But without the playtest rules explicitly saying they are, I think the default ruling should probably be what you suggest, namely, that they don't count as magic. (Contra to how I ruled in battle 3, above.)
Glad to hear I got the spell rulings right, even though these rules seem to make opponents like Hallajins weaker than it seems they should be.
Looking forward to reading about how things go with your group too!
@Metaphysician: I believe the Kyokor moves 100' per move action, so could use double moves to overtake an Atlas (with a 50' move) even if the Atlas spent two actions moving backwards every round.
But to answer your question about why the Atlas didn't move, the background story regarding this fight was that the Atlas was supposed to prevent a pair of approaching Kyokor's from destroying the city. So the Atlas was positioned right in front of the first bunch of occupied residential buildings, and was supposed to stop the Kyokors before they could move past it.
I tried a lower level encounter. A Level 2 Mech against 5 PCs (who were also level 2). The level 2 Mech was tough to hit with a 19 EAC and 20 KAC (they were used to hitting AC 13 opponents). The PCs resorted to some other tactics, such as spells and one PC tried to climb the mech. I had him make some acrobatics checks to get into position, and an athletics check to start climbing. Then I had the mech make a grapple attack (rolled a 20) to grab the PC, so then the mech threw him 40 feet away and he took some falling damage.
The Mech was hitting the PCs pretty easily, with a chainwhip for melee, and either a flamethrower or sonic shotgun from range. I did not like the action economy for the mech - All these weapons but only really able to use one. I think some additional rules to allow more might work (auto target or other action). I understand the operator functionality, but I really didn't want 3 people operating the mech as it seemed like it would be too imbalanced (because after the mech goes down, now you have 3 more enemies to deal with).
Spending PP to replenish shields seems great, but I rolled a 1 and a 2 on consecutive turns, so the shields were not helping. In the end, the PCs were able to successfully take it out. Three of the PCs were out of stamina, but only one got into HP damage. I think the challenge of a level 2 mech vs 5 level 2 PCs was probably fair and appropriate.
Building the Mech was very complex. I would recommend a table similar to a PC Class that shows BAB, HP, hardness, Saves, etc. trying to add it all up with different formulas for various things is a bit overwhelming. I spent a few hours trying to set it up in a spreadsheet just to make sure the calculations were working.
It was definitely not a hard encounter for the PCs. I would say it was closer to CR2 or CR3 at best. (I think if I had 3 operators fight them immediately after, then that might push it higher.)
Did you build the mech for the PCs to fight against using the Mech creation rules or the modified NPC creation rules? The modified NPC creation rules should have much lower ACs.