Star Force Droid Generator (Virtual KotOR)

[gwek]

Star Forge Droid Generator
Cost: 25
Faction: Sith
Hit Points: 70
Defense: 12
Attack: 0
Damage: 0

Damage Reduction 10 (Whenever this character takes damage, reduce the damage dealt by 10. Attacks with lightsabers ignore this special ability.)
Emplacement (Cannot move or be moved. Set up anywhere on your half of the battle map)
Machinery (Industrial Repair removes damage from this character)
Star Forge Generator (If you roll an odd number for initiative, you an add a character named Star Forge Droid to your squad, adjacent to this character, immediately before your first activation of the round)



Design Notes

And now... for something completely different!

I'm not sure what I think about this piece, but it's an attempt at a completely new idea. There are two very different things about this piece.

The first, and more obvious, is the Star Forge Generator special ability, which allows this piece to generator a potentially endless stream of Star Force Droids. While the Star Forge Droids themselves will be weak (marginally better than Sep Battle Droids), they activation bonus they provide, as well as other tactical advantages, could be pivotal. The special ability is sort of a mingling of Kazdan's Immediate Droids reserves and the Rakghoul Disease. Because it activates on an odd number, it's sort of the Tactics Broker's worst enemy: if he forces you to have a 1 for initiative, he loses a piece and you gain one!

The other thing that's somewhat unique about this piece is that it can't DO anything. It just kinda... sits there and generates monsters. The net effect of that is that it's sort of a "free" activation, tactically speaking. There is no benefit in activating it early or late in the round, so you can activate it whenever you want to.

I don't think this adds up to anything TOO game-altering, but I'm interested to see what other people have to say.

So what do you think? Fun addition or worthless to the game?

[gwek]

Well, the the official introduction of the Bacta Tank, my concern about a "hollow" activation melts away.

[Sharrakor]

I think its a fun addition. Nothing to add from me.

[planeswalker459]

With fringe recon, and some of our sith with recon, the cost of this should be in the 23-30 range, as it becomes far easier to roll an 11, and anything cheaper might be too powerful

Think of it having its own cost, plus the cost of one star forge droid for pricing

It may not be nearly as powerful as basic reserves are in terms of sheer numbers, but the ability to get them on any odd number makes it extremly powerful, and potentially dangerous.


I do like the idea and concept, Im just worried about game balancing. Good job though.

[Sharrakor]

I just noticed a very dangerous combination (assuming you roll odd everytime):

If you have 2 Star Forge Droids, and the Star Forge Generator, you can get one from the 2 SFD and one from the Generator, which gives you another one.

Then next round (with 5 SFDs) you gain one from the SFD and then another one from the new pair (7 SFD).

Then in the next round, you gain two more SFDs and now have 9.

Now that's all assuming you get odd numbers, but its not too difficult, especially when you a 50/50 chance of getting one.

I dunno. Maybe its something for you to consider?

[gwek]

PW: Do you think on an odd result is too much?

Sharr: I really need to get back to the SFD. The intention, with the SFDGen in place, is that Horde weill go away (and the SFDs themselves become glorified Battle Droids).

How about this for revised stats:

Star Forge Droid Generator
Cost: 28
Faction: Sith
Hit Points: 80
Defense: 8
Attack: 0
Damage: 0

Emplacement (Cannot move or be moved. Set up anywhere on your half of the battle map)
Machinery (Industrial Repair removes damage from this character)
Shields 2 (When this character takes damage, make 2 saves; each roll of 11 reduces the damage dealt by 10)
Star Forge Generator (If you roll an odd number for initiative, you an add a character named Star Forge Droid to your squad, adjacent to this character, immediately before your first activation of the round)

****

I lowered the HP by 10 and the Defense by a decent amount to make it more in line with the Bacta Tank (HPs are higher because I figure its heartier).

I kept Shields (rather than the Damage Reduction the Bacta Tank has) to keep in in line with the SADs and SHADs (which, incidentally, makes Bao-Dur the go-to guy for taking this thing out).

Assuming the SFDs stay at a cost of 8, 28 is equal to 3.5 of them. Pull out 4, and the unit has more than paid for itself.

We like?

[planeswalker459]

I think the reserves should be more like Kazadan's, especially when considering on any given roll, you have a 50/50 chance of getting them.

If your opponent has a Tactics broker, well then, its now every round.


If you make it like kazadans, then you still ahve a 1/5 chance of getting the number you want, and fringe recon helps you get clsoer to it as well. I just think its too powerful when just "an odd number"

[gwek]

You may be right, but before we change things, consider that this is very different from Kazdan's Reserves in a few ways.

Kazdan's Immediate Reserves may only kick in 20% of the time, but they give you 30 points of non-unique droids of any faction. There are roughly 30 options, ranging from Mouse Droid to Guard Droid, and two-thirds of them are pieces that the Rebels and Republic cannot get access to otherwise. Heck, Kazdan allows you to create combos that NO faction can have access to. Battle Droid Commander and Juggernaut War Droid? No problem!

While only 1 in 5 initiative rolls will result in a success, Kazdan has access to cheap Fringe Recon (as well as the Probe Droid and, as a Rebel, Artoo, both of which offer cheaper Recon). In a Republic squad, he also has access to Anticipation, giving him up to three shots at his Reserves.

Since his Reserves are based on cost, Gha Nachkt can reduce the cost accordingly, allowing slightly higher numbers of droids (eg, 15 Mouse Droids or 10 Battle Droids--talk about activation control!). Gha also allows Kazdan access to two more droids (one of them the Lancer).

Now, how much exactly does that cost Kazdan? Take away IDR and his cost would probably be 30-35. Even if we're conservative and knock is cost down to 25, IDR costs 30, so with one use, it pays for itself. A second use has basically paid for the entire piece.

The Star Forge Droid Generator, by comparision, has a 50% chance of giving you a Star Forge Droid (a peice that will probably net out roughly somewhere between a Battle Droid and a Super Battle Droid, with a cost of about 8). Sure, Recon increases that dramatically (giving a 3/4 chance instead of 1/2, I think), but it's still just a Star Forge Droid. Gha's Rapport doesn't help, and this lacks the flexibility of Kazdan's Reserves.

The interaction with Tactics Broker could be troublesome (although in part, I wanted it to be a dig at the MTB), but other than that, is the 50% (or even 75% rate) particularly abusive? If we assume that the SFDroid is roughly equivalent to the SBD minus Charging Fire, would the Generator be too powerful if it provided one every ROUND?

I guess that might be valuable as a starting point. If all chance were removed and you automatically got the extra droid, what would that do to the piece (in terms of cost and game balance)?

(Apologies to those who made it to the end of this post. It wound up much longer than I expected! I'm not necessarily arguing that the piece shouldn't change, just trying to figure out if it's abusive, and, if so, how much and where.)

[Jm419]

It's interesting, but perhaps we could say a roll of 16 or higher for initiative, for two reasons:

A. It fits in with WotC Precedents.
B. It lowers our 50% to 25%, which would relieve some of the problem.

That should solve our problems. However, if we really wanted to take out the MTB, we could always revise that for 1-6. Therefore, you'd lose initiative, but you'd gain another piece - which might be an interesting dynamic.

[gwek]

I see what you're saying, and you know I'm usually the first to say "But WotC did it this way!", but I'm not sure that Kazdan is really a great precedent here, because Kazdan can actually DO stuff (unlike the SFDG).

(I'm assuming, perhaps incorrectly, that Kazdan is the precedent you're talking about?)

WotC has offered precedent for the 50% chance of reinforcements (even making it off vs even, I believe), in the Ultimate Missions books. There are a number of scenarios with scenario-specific rules along the lines of "on an odd roll for initiative, add two stormtroopers to your squad."

I guess I feel like the power level doesn't matter so much here (whether he gives a new SFD all the time, 50%, 20%, of what), so much as he's priced appropriately.

On raw stats, this piece comes in at about 7 points, without the generator aspect (I'm lowering the HP from 80 to 60, which is what I meant to do originally...). Assuming the SFD costs around 8, and using Kazdan's Immediate Droid Reserves as a guideline, if the generator only activates 20-25% of the time, the cost should be 15 or less (I'd say less, probably closer to 11, because SFD Generator is so much more limited than Kazdan).

Does that all make sense?

[Jm419]

Actually, I just meant that the save should be more difficult to make...and seeing as how a save of 6 appears in a few places, then the 75% would be a 16. I don't actually know what Kazdan does, so that wouldn't really work so well...heh.

I'd say that a cost of 15 would be okay, but the issue is that you can get an endless stream of reinforcements if you place, say, 10 of these at 200 pts. You're going to get (probably) 3 droids per turn - and if turtling's the strategy, then you're going to have rougly 10 droids along with your original squad that isn't SFD Generators - meaning that your opponent is going to go in facing ten battle droids plus fifty points of an original squad. In the time that it takes the opponent to blast through your squad (and I'm assuming that you'd be inflicting casualties, too) you have even more droids at your disposal. Perhaps we should limit the whole deal to a certain number of these can be played, but I don't know how such an ability would be worded, or even what we'd call it.

In related news, why were these things such a big deal in the game? I just bashed the door after Malak left, killing maybe two droids on the way out, then when I got to Malak himself, he started talking like I'd just been through a war. I was like, "No, that wasn't so bad..." What were you supposed to do in that room with these generators, anyway? Fight off 200 droids, then the door opens? Destroy the generators?

[gwek]

Mar 24, 2009 20:41:11 GMT -5 Jm419 said:

Actually, I just meant that the save should be more difficult to make...and seeing as how a save of 6 appears in a few places, then the 75% would be a 16. I don't actually know what Kazdan does, so that wouldn't really work so well...heh.

Are you talking about Initiative? That's not a save, so I'm not sure...

I'd say that a cost of 15 would be okay, but the issue is that you can get an endless stream of reinforcements if you place, say, 10 of these at 200 pts. You're going to get (probably) 3 droids per turn

Assuming its based on initiative, it's all or nothing: the ALL give you a new droid, or they don't.

and if turtling's the strategy, then you're going to have rougly 10 droids along with your original squad that isn't SFD Generators - meaning that your opponent is going to go in facing ten battle droids plus fifty points of an original squad. In the time that it takes the opponent to blast through your squad (and I'm assuming that you'd be inflicting casualties, too) you have even more droids at your disposal.

I see what you're saying, but remember that the SFDG does nothing except make SFDs... and the SFDs falls somewhere between Battle Droids and Super Battle Droids in terms of power... with very few options for support (Revan and the CzerkSci are about it, I think).

Are oodles of SFDs really that big a problem?

Perhaps we should limit the whole deal to a certain number of these can be played, but I don't know how such an ability would be worded, or even what we'd call it.

I'm a little reluctant to say "This piece is too powerful to have a lot of," because there are tons of existing pieces that should have that!

I'd rather make it a little more potent and drive the cost up. For example, if we re-jigger a bit, and make it worth 26 or 27, that significantly cuts down the number that you can have (from 10 to 7)...

In related news, why were these things such a big deal in the game? I just bashed the door after Malak left, killing maybe two droids on the way out, then when I got to Malak himself, he started talking like I'd just been through a war. I was like, "No, that wasn't so bad..." What were you supposed to do in that room with these generators, anyway? Fight off 200 droids, then the door opens? Destroy the generators?

Been a while since I've played, but I believe what you're supposed to do is shut down each generator. Shutting each down takes a minute or two, during which you're being attacked, and the generators are making more droids.

[Jm419]

The save was a mistake. I didn't mean save, I just meant that a 50% chance to get droids may be a bit much.

Next, 10 SFDs might be a bit overwhelming at times - it basically comes down to if you can kill all ten of them before the machines come into play again. Otherwise, it becomes a tide.

While it's a really cool concept (endless waves of battle droids!), I'd feel much more comfortable if we give it Damage Reduction or something like that and raised the cost to 25. Less common to see ten of these, you'd probably see five at the most.

[bountyhunter9]

I recall that in the game the Generators only replaced the Star Forge droid if the droid was destroyed, forcing you to destroy the generators to stop the endless flow of droids. There were multiple generators in the game, and I don't know if this could be reproduced in miniatures. The 50% chance of another droid with initiative does seem a bit much, though. Something to think about

[Jm419]

Yeah. The 50% is quite a few droids, but, they're after all no better than a SBD, if that. The destroyed/replaced concept is interesting.