STILL Not Dead (Terrors & Tactics Updade)

Everybody needs a break at some point. Take whatever time you need to just relax and decompress.

Okay, letting everyone know break time is over and I’m diving back into the process.

I started out with a fresh playtest on the current build and ran into something I’m not sure I like because it’s such a 5e-ism.

Specifically, this group played on my some of my “small amounts of healing at no cost while bloodied” mechanics to do the 5e thing where you only heal someone after they’ve dropped because there’s no negative hit points and even 1 point puts your combat ability back to full and then just drop and get up and drop and get up, then spend minimal resources to bring yourself up full afterwards.

Basically they “solved” combat resource loss such that they ended up only needing a surge each to recover from even the hardest battles.

I like where my bloodied healing is, but I’d really only seen it employed to keep you from dropping in the first place. The 5e tactics (which sadly are becoming quite common due to 5e’s prevalence) just wreck it.

So I’m thinking of a bit of a change to what happens at 0 Edge to make it a little scarier. Specifically, each time you drop to 0 Edge with a lethal attack you lose a surge. This means if you’re getting up immediately after being hit without more recovery (through extra actions to slowly regain Edge or a surge to quickly do so) and getting dropped again you’re just going to burn through your surges and kill yourself.

I’m going to need to “stress test” it, but I’m thinking PCs might need another surge or two as a buffer because running out of surges is still death and so spending surges on other things gets even riskier.

The other alternative would be to separate “wounds” (what you lose at 0 Edge and failed recovery checks) from “surges” (daily powers/action points), but I really like the strategic/tactical considerations of them all drawing from the same pool.

Beyond that, in stepping back into the project, I’m going to put more focus on the environmental/terrain rules than the player motivations section. I’ve always been better at crunch than fluff so it’s just an easier category for me to work on in ramping back up.

Good to have you back, man.

***

You could reintroduce negative edge, but making what happens at 0 edge scarier is a good idea, to put people off of that tactic. Adding another surge or two as a buffer may end up undermining what you're trying to do by making losing all your edge scarier. I'd test it as is, without the extra surges, to see what happens. The buffer may not be necessary.

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You could also set a hard limit to the number of times you can go to 0 edge without dying, regardless of surge value. It's a bit of a kludge and reminiscent of ye old death saving throws, but the death saving throws worked for a reason, and it lets you tie surges to the mechanic. You could also increase the number of times a character can go to 0 edge without dying each time they move up a tier: twice at Journeyman tier, three times at Expert tier, and four times per Master tier, just as an example.

I’m not a fan of negative Edge for the simple reason that it’s generally representing your active defense; your parrying, ducking, rolling, grasping for handholds, etc. Zero Edge means you’re no longer able to actively defend and are wide open for a finishing blow.

What would negative Edge even mean in that context? Maybe if I didn’t have heroic surges for deep endurance reserves it could represent those deep reserves that take time to kick in; but I do have those so it’d kinda end up with two tools doing the same thing.

For the same reason I’m not fond of adding extra mechanics to how surges interact with recovery checks. One thing I like about the current Edge/Focus/Surges setup is that there’s only three pools you need to track; not hit points (with negative values), death saves, action points and whether individual encounter and daily powers have been used.

I’m also fond of the fact that surges are mostly level agnostic. If rituals and other surge burning actions used Edge instead then they’d either need to scale with level (messy) or some rituals just become trivial at higher levels or otherwise prohibitively expensive at lower levels.

A level 11 PC vs. a level 1 might have 10 surges instead of 8 and recover 2/hour of rest instead of 1/hour (i.e. END bumps from 1 to 3), but pushing 20% harder and recovering from that in 5 hours rest instead of 8 hours isn’t making a level 11 explicitly inhuman.

For now I’m going to leave surge values alone as you suggest. If I bump it, I suspect it won’t be by much; say 8+End instead of the current 7+End. My big concern is that the change might be a bit too lethal for PCs with a -1 END (six surges) and they’ll feel completely locked out of using them for anything other than Edge recovery/death recovery check buffer).

The key line for me is that I do want to keep the general feel of heroic fantasy. I worry that if death is to easy it’ll change the focus into what I’ve heard described as “horror fantasy” (anyone can die at any time... a term I specifically heard used for the proper ethos for OSR D&D games).

Heroes get knocked out/suffer wounds that make the audience fear for them all the time in fiction. I want that to happen. But death even in those cases are rare in heroic fantasy. The trick is to balance the threat with the actual consequence.

Makes sense. Thinking on it now, losing a surge when you hit 0 edge could work as its own soft limit on how many times you can get up, since people would be using surges for more than just "death saves" and healing.

That’s the thinking. It also creates some tactical decisions.

In that in the middle of a fight opponents will mostly focus on people still in the fight instead of already down (kill them later if you need to). So do you regain 8 Edge with a minor heal and get up immediately just to likely get knocked down (and lose another surge) the next time you’re hit or do you a turn while down and not being attacked to rally and use a second minor heal to get you another 28 and be able to take three more hits before you get back in fight?

The answer depends on the situation, obviously. Getting up and getting a hit in might end the fight before another attack even comes your way. Other times the rest of the party has things under control enough that the most efficient use of resources for the adventure is to just lay there and use surgeless healing back up to Bloodied then Rallying so you’re as at close to full strength as you can manage.

Where I need to strike the balance is I want people to feel they have enough surges to take SOME risks in spending them for extra or boosted attacks and rituals/boons, but not so many (or with dropping to zero being so soft) that they have no concern for the “0 Edge + 0 surges = dead” side of the equation either.

Sounds like a pretty simple test, with the extra surge and without it.

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I was just looking through the eldritch traits again, and the metal eldritch lacks options in both the humanoid incarnate form and the elemental movement boon. For simplicity's sake, I'd probably lump them in with feral, getting access to STR or REF for the second attribute bonus and getting a +2 to their movement speeds if they take elemental movement.

After some tests, I think a base surge count does need to go up slightly; 8+END will be the next test.

Six heroic surges was just too small for running what I told the group would be a series of three sequential battles for the player of the -1 END character. They said they didn’t feel safe with less than six surges.

This ties into a recurring theme with my testing; that as soon as the players figures out the limit to how many surges they can spend on Rallies in a battle (i.e. 2 at level 1-5, 3 at 6-10, 4 at 11+) they really like to keep enough surges and focus in reserve to use them.

Three battles x two Rallies per fight = six surges kept in reserve for healing. They’d rather have the insurance of always having enough surges to Rally instead of spending then on big actions.

There’s actually a whole lot of complex human decisions going inside what I initially assumed would be a very straight forward damage soak/short-term/long-term resource scheme.

I’m still not quite convinced adding just one is the right answer though. I’m almost thinking I need to re-evaluate the Rally mechanic in general. It’s escalating focus cost already putting a cap on uses per battle. Does it NEED to cost a surge?

If it doesn’t cost a surge, I could cut back on the number of surges a player has with the risk of death at 0 Edge being the main reason to not just spend them freely, but without the restraint of needing enough to Rally (Guardians also wouldn’t need extra surges since their reduced Rally cost would take care of their extra healing needs).

How few surges, how quickly they recover, and how END affects both would be the big questions in such a change. One advantage of how it’s set up now is that a one hour rest can get back just enough surges to maybe get you through another fight, but if Surges went down to say 3-4, I’d need to make the rest more like 2-3 hours to regain a surge.

I’m definitely going to need to do more tests, including repeats with the same groups once they’re more comfortable with the change.

* * * *

Good catch on the metal eldritch. Kinda shows the order some of the changes got added to the species as a result. I’m debating whether it should be STR or INT or STR or DEX now.

As to the movement option I’m leaning towards something more interesting than just +2 to something. That doesn’t feel very “metal” to me. Instead I’m thinking one or two choices. The first would be immunity to movement effects. The second, if I go with STR/DEX and you chose DEX would be “no penalties for squeezing” reflecting a living mercury type of being. Those feel more metal-like to me.

As an update, scrap the idea of scrapping surges for Rallies. They need to cost something to limit the number of full heal-ups before you have to stop and rest, which is a needed mechanic.

That does leave the question of precisely how many surges and their recovery rate though. Ideally I want a full rest in 8 hours or less. One reason 7+END works is that by the time you got to 9 surges, you also recovered 2/hour of rest so it would only take 4.5 hours to recover them.

Maybe it’d help to just lay the actual values out;

END -1 = 6 surges, regain 1/hour (full recovery in 6 hours; frail and doesn’t sleep well).
END 0 = 7 surges, regain 1/hour (full recovery in 7 hours)
END 1 = 8 surges, regain 1/hour (full recovery in 8 hours)
END 2 = 9 surges, regain 2/hour (full recovery in 5 hours... only full hours count)
END 3 = 10 surges, regain 2/hour (full recovery in 5 hours)
END 4 = 11 surges, regain 3/hour (full recovery in 4 hours)
END 5 = 12 surges, regain 3/hour (full recovery in 4 hours)
END 6 = 13 surges, regain 4/hour (full recovery in 4 hours)
END 7 = 14 surges, regain 4/hour (full recovery in 4 hours)

The only real weirdness for me is that END 1 takes longer than END 0 to fully recover (-1 END just never gets a full night’s rest and that’s one reason they’re sickly), but overall it works.

Adding even 1 to the surge counts though throws that full recovery time into chaos. END 3 would need more rest than END 2 and END 5 would need more than END 4.

Anyway, it’s 5:30 am and I’m finally tired enough to get back to sleep (I have to get up at 4:30 am three days a week to pick up my dad from a dialysis center and it takes a bit for me to crash again) so I’m ending this post here-ish.

The main takeaway is; no radical reconstruction of the Rally mechanic will be happening and tweaking the surge numbers has enough weirdness that I may just be stuck with a bit more cautious play than I’d intended.

Looks like you're locked in as far as surges go.

***

How's your dad doing, by the way?

My dad's doing pretty well for 79 years old with bad kidneys.

As to surges, one way around the limit is to do some reworking of the Durable boon. I'm specifically thinking that it should to be moved from backgrounds (since its combat related) to the basic class talents and reworded to essentially be "you gain two surges that can only spend while at 0 Edge... which would cover both ones you'd lose if dropped to 0 Edge, those from failed recovery checks while dying and rallies used while at 0 Edge."

That would give those who want it an extra buffer and its a solid choice for the human bonus basic talent if they don't want another proficiency or such.

That's good to hear. He sounds tough as heck.

The Durable rework sounds like a good idea.

So, playtesting went a bit sideways into other areas than expected, but it led to a couple of good catches on some rules and a few good suggestions.

One catch of note is that the Unseelie elf's benefit still refers to Ability Focus rather than Action Focus and the new version now adds to damage so, even if the connection to the proper ability was there, as written it can also give a pretty solid damage boost relative to normal focus amount (the unseelie elf in the group who caught it noted he essentially got the +5 damage/focus spent effect for free because he had Focus 5).

I'm not sure if I want that big of an effect or not... and if I do, does the Seelie effect needs a boost to match because shift 1 per focus spent feels pretty puny compared to Focus extra damage per focus spent (to be fair the Seelie elf gets that in addition to whatever other focus effect they're getting... Unseelie has to use a particular thing and it replaces the usual +3)

The most notable catch of note was Pyromancy. At issue; the trigger for its effect was "deal damage", but the effect was sustain hit (i.e. you're on fire and burning), but what happens if you use a heat damage energy missile with no attack roll to use for the sustain?

So the effect is being changed. Instead of 5 damage (sustain hit) per focus spent, the effect is now that it deals Focus extra damage at the start of your next turn. This actually brings it more into line with aeromancy, brontomancy, cryomancy, hydromancy and terramancy in that it doesn't require focus to employ its effect and works with autohit effects.

The delay means that while it does supply extra damage, the delay to it makes it sometimes sub-optimal to rely on (sure 4 damage next turn will kill it, but the critter still gets its next turn before it dies... is that potential damage worth it?) and a recovery check can end it before it takes effect.

This was caught because the playtest had a level up and one player had the concept of wanting to add interesting secondary effects to his energy missile (they're a Maledictor so it does enough damage for them to often use it as their main and minor action).

I bring that up because they were curious why there wasn't an effect similar to the ones mentioned above for Acid and Toxic damage... which; are two solid ideas. I looked up the Greek and they'd probably be named Oxymancy (acid) and Toximancy (toxic). Acid should probably have some sort of weaker version of "vulnerable" to it and I'm not certain what Toxic's effect should be, but I'll come up with something (the problem with poison is there's so many different ways it could affect a person so narrowing it down to one is tricky).

Another request came from the Sidekick/Mastermind who asked if they could get an option to allow them to use a minor action companion command as a free action if they spent a focus on it. That's basically in line with "spend one focus to affect another target with a minor action" so I don't think its upbalanced... it should probably be a background boon though since all the other companion stuff is so I think they're going to have to wait until next level for that.

A final request was for a "Wall of Force" spell akin to "Ice Wall" but without the cold damage. I suggested refluffing Ice Wall (since the damage was entirely based on Focus cost), but they had it in their head that Ice is not Force and I've dealt with player psychology enough to fight that... and it is a reasonable spell request... perhaps as a boon instead of an attack though.

So, didn't help me with my Surge thing or my terrain write-ups, but it was still interesting feedback none-the-less.

With regard to Unseelie's Action Focus, another option would be to grant the focus bonus to ability checks, but not damage rolls. Yeah, it's a nerf, but it's simpler than finding a way to buff Seelie's shifting for focus, and it keeps the damage rolls in check.

If you're fine with the focus damage boost, then perhaps Seelie can gain the focus to skill checks, but not damage rolls, in addition to or as an alternative to shifting whenever they spend focus.

***

Maybe with Toximancy you can crib off your Madness attack spell and have it be one of several random spell effects (or not random by paying focus).

Alternatively, you have the player pick from a list of condition when they take Toximancy and allow them to take it more than once, gaining different conditions each time (and potentially applying more conditions or stacking conditions per focus spent, though this may be a bit much). This shouldn't be a problem when combined with the basic attack spells, since applying the Toximancy condition would cost focus.

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Making "Wall of Force" a boon would make sense, since it's not inherently damaging the way that fire, ice, and lightning are. It's kind of like a Green Lantern construct, if I'm reading the player's intent correctly. You could probably pull it off by starting with the Conjure Structure minor spell (which is referred to as "create structure" in Dryanara and Auri'Jin's sample entries).

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I'd be a little worried that using the companion character's minor action as a free action might adversely affect the action economy, even if it costs focus to do so, but it's definitely worth testing.

Regarding The Elven Seelie/Unseelie disparity; I realized that I've been looking at it wrong.

Unseelie's bonus isn't their whole Focus score, its just the difference between +3 and their Focus score. So about +0-2 during levels 1-5, +1-4 in levels 6-10 and +4-6 at levels 11-15.

That means Seelie might not need an increase at all since they get the bonus EVERY time they spend focus while Unseelie only gets theirs for a specific (albeit very useful once their focus score is high enough) action.

As an example, a seelie elf casts Arc Lightning and spends a focus; the target is now shaken, flat-footed or weakened AND the seelie elf shifts 1 pace. The unseelie elf only gets their benefit if they use Action Focus to increase the attack or damage roll before rolling either.

At MOST, I'm thinking Seelie might only need a bump to say "shift 1/2/3 (by tier)" per focus spent and perhaps not even that.

* * * *

Oxymancy ended up with its extra trait being "If you deal acid damage the target takes 1/2 Focus extra damage each time it takes damage (ENT)." Not as good as Vulnerable, but as long as the target is hit twice in the meantime it's equivalent in damage to Pyromancy's Focus damage at the start of your next turn (and could be exploited by allies to drop the foe before it gets a turn whereas Pyromancy never would.

For Toximancy, I opted for a list of five conditions you could pick from (i.e. "pick your poison"; couldn't resist the pun); confused, dazed, shaken, slowed or weakened. You can pick it up to three times, gaining +2 on your second and third pick (only one of the first since it also gives toxic resistance and turns your damage toxic.

Toximancy would be a great option for using the cross-training talent for an assassin type character to pick up as they could apply the effects to their weapon attacks too... though I'm wondering if I shouldn't just make an "poison expert" version for them so a dedicated poisoner could pick up all three in a row instead of only one/tier.

* * * *

The trick with Wall of Force is how to balance it with just using "Creation" to make a wall. I don't want it to be impenetrable as that would be rather unbalanced, so how good is it compared to what someone using creation or Earth Spirit to create a 100c wall of stone?

* * * *

I think you're probably right on the companion actions. The trick I'm having is that some people are really not seeing the utility versus just hiring NPCs who get their own sets of actions.

I've already had one person try to leverage the Stipend rules to hire some troops and though non-grunts are prohibitively expensive and still die a lot easier than companions, it still was still seen as a viable alternative because it legitimately added to the action economy of the party and the fact that it allowed them to face tougher foes was actually seen as a plus even if the XP rewards/level up speed was reduced by the lessening of the threat to the PCs.

Even without that boon, it starts to get really obvious when the PCs start getting enough money to be able to afford a decent retinue that the paid ones are definitely more effective since they don't impact your own action economy and I REALLY don't want to include something as meta-gamey as "command limits" and action costs to using paid mercenaries.

Their only real downside is that if they are dropped, they're dead instead of getting back up for the next fight, but from what I'm seeing when I looking at it more deeply in action, the people most interested in the companions are the ones who mostly see them as cogs in a machine and/or are pretty good at keeping their paid mercenaries upright.

I really don't want to take away the ability to hire mercenaries, because that feels VERY game-y, but there needs to be some better balance between hired troops and companions.

Maybe that's just hired troops needing to be more expensive (probably double or more their current cost... maybe make the cost by the month instead of the week as well).

Maybe its some sort of free combat action (about what a talent would add to one of a PCs attacks... since they're equivalently priced.

Of note, the only companions that aren't really complained about are the followers/familiars (both non-combat), the loyal beast (because the risk/reward with its attack) and the bodyguard (because its reaction abilities are solid).

Maybe rebalancing their damage around the beast's risk/reward element would be the way to go... command the troops and if they're successful, they give you an opening to use a minor action for free.

I dunno... I just know that the people most interested in companions are hiring them instead of using the enforcer, medic or warriors boons.

I'd try the Seelie buff that you were thinking - it seems to balance well against the increasing damage with Unseelie.

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Oxymancy and Toximancy sound like they work well. Good choice on the Toximancy conditions.

I like your idea of a poison expert talent, since toxic damage isn't delivered solely via magic.

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Given the presence of Creation and Earth Spirit, I'm starting to wonder if "Wall of Force" is even necessary.

***


I'd give the idea about rebalancing the paid mercenaries' damage around the beast's risk/reward element a shot, since it's a combat companion that seems to work rather well. Beyond that, I'm not sure what you can really do, given that the paid mercs having their own actions makes more sense than the gamist solutions you dismissed.

I'd also implement the price changes you were talking about.

I've got another test coming Saturday with the same folks who brought all this stuff up so we'll see how that goes. The only one that won't get actively tested is the Seelie elf change (no Seelie elves in the group).

* * * *

Glad you approve of the new talents. Expert Poisoner has been added though its a nearly word-for-word adaption of the spellcasting talent. The main advantage is that warriors now don't need to use one of their rare cross-talent options to get it.

* * * *

The Creation and Earth/Plant/Ice Spirit boons do mean that any Wall of Force concept needs to offer something else. Another nail in having something viable is the "Conjure Structure" minor spell available to Interdictors and Maledictors that is literally a (sustain minor) construct that can even support weight.

Since "re-fluff at will" is a written rule there's no reason it couldn't be translucent Green Lantern-like force instead of conjured stone or metal or wood.

I'm thinking "Not Needed" is now the appropriate answer there.

* * * *

So it turns out I need to read my own rules a little better. There already IS a risk/reward option for the other companions; its just a separate boon found at the start of the companion section. If I recall, I made it a separate boon for the others because of all the extra utility that a sapient ally with species traits and skills provides outside of combat relative to a non-sapient beast companion, but I do wonder if that's the case.

I'm going to have to sit down and look at a human enforcer (since their primary role is extra damage) and a loyal beast side-by-side... and then a human enforcer with the coordination boon vs. a loyal beast with a second selection to add more beast traits to it to see how they shake out.

I'm definitely changing the pricing on Mercs as well, though I think I have a more interesting way to do it and still keep the prices in line with general wages. Basically, "Hazard Pay."

If you wanna hire mercs to guard your home, warehouse, castle, etc. the listed prices are fine. If you want them to come out into the wilds to hunt monsters and explore ruins, that costs double. The same cost increase applies to the other types too. Paying a common laborer 1c per day to load and unload a ship is fine. They want more if you expect them to be your porters out in the wilds.

So using Stipend around a civilized area to have hired help around is still viable, but they'll only be able to afford a single standard creature of their level if they're wanting to bring them out into the wilds and if they die, you have to wait a week for your next Stipend installment to arrive.

Good work on the talents. I look forward to seeing them in the next update.

***

Also, The guy wanting a Wall of Force could just multiclass into interdictor/maledictor and pick up the Conjure Structure minor spell and get some additional benefits to go along with it. "Not necessary" does seem like the best answer.

***

Hazard pay is a rather elegant solution. I can see the conversation between PC and NPC:
PC: I want you to come with me into the Stormhold Necropolis.
NPC Mercenary: As long as you have the extra silver, I'm your man.
PC: Extra silver? No, I'm not paying you more, I've got a budget to keep.
NPC: Uh huh. And right now me going anywhere within screaming distance of that waterlogged hellhole is out of your budget unless your tight ass comes up off the silver.
PC:...

As for reading your own rules better, I don't blame you one bit - you've been working on this beast for so long and done so many revisions that you've got multiple versions of the ruleset floating around in your brain.

Weekend playtest update time.

The new talents went over well. Hazard pay was a resigned “I understand” from the players and “Thank you” from that GM. I pointed out the Conjure Structure minor spell to the player who wanted a Wall of Force and that covered that (I might want to change the name though... maybe Force Structure). Not much to report other than “working as intended” for those bits.

A new thing caught is that Ravage and the Disabler’s AoE attack need to be scaled back. The GM threw a horde of weaker foes at the party and the shapeable nature of the Wall AoE meant that both were routinely tagging 4-5 targets with their Wall 6, while burst 1/blast 3’s were only tagging 2-3 (which is the intended number the math is balanced around). What I’m thinking now is making those AoE’s into Wall 4 + 2/focus spent. This makes the default smaller, but can scale up with focus use to a Wall 10.

* * * *

I also tore apart the companions for some better direct comparison and learned a few things.

First, Beast Companion attributes and abilities actually aren’t weaker than the other types. Indeed, other than INT, their attributes are overall higher.

You’d have to count a beast’s “null” INT as a -3 to be considered balanced with the other companion’s arrays. In practice though INT is something a Beast will ever NEED to roll; Even PCs can muddle through adventures without ever succeeding on an Arcana, Culture or Engineering check.

In other words, it’s basically a non-penalizing penalty (which is how it’s treated when building monsters; null stats count as zero, not a negative). For the checks that matter the Beast will be as good or better than other companions.

Second, low-light vision and three beast traits stacks up pretty well the to player species benefits other companions get; the human’s bonus talent, boon and +2 to three skills being the archetype that all the other player species are balanced with.

Their speeds and default actions are also basically the same (beasts only losing out on ranged attacks without spending a beast trait for them).

So when you really boil them down, the main points of difference are these;

- Bodyguards get better defenses/Edge + improved free strikes + interpose.
- Enforcers get bonus damage vs. flat-footed targets.
- Medics can always take 10 on Medicine and get a restore Edge to Bloodied targets action.
- Beasts get the risk-reward coordinated attacks.

The primary takeaway I get from this is that Enforcers are weaksauce (Medics are too, but at least do something unique) compared to Bodyguards and Beasts.

The second observation is; just how much of an investment do I want to make companions? Because a companion + the two companion boosting boons works out to nearly half (3 of 8 ) of a player’s total background boons.

Bare minimum, the Enforcer and probably the Medic need a buff to make them as good as the Bodyguard.

Slightly more complex would be if I wanted to include the risk-reward mechanic for all the companions (which would put the Enforcer more in line with the Beast) then the Bodyguard needs a nerf instead since it’s better defenses/Edge, “Free Strike anyone who moves closer to the PC” and interpose; even if it can’t use both of the latter two at the same time; are quite a bit more than the others get.

I’ve got a mostly mindless cut job I need to run today for work, so I’m going to play with these numbers and compare them with a Hazard Pay Merc gained from Stipend and a reasonable Warbeast for a PC of a given level (say 10% of my wealth by level using XP) to see what I get.

All input, as always, is welcome.

What you could do is make the medic and enforcer run off the risk/reward mechanic and leave the body guard as is, since the bodyguard is the effective one. Alternatively, you could have the medic give out free recovery checks in addition in addition to the restored edge.

***

Scaling the disabler/ravager's AoE effect also brings it in line with the interdictor. Part of me wonders if you should scale the ravager's AoE to just Wall 4, to bring it in line with how the maledictor can't increase the size of its AoEs, or if you want to give the maledictor improved enlarged spell, or at least the part that lets you expand it beyond burst/blast 3 and target 2 by paying focus. The interdictor probably needs to keep the "enlarge spell is free if you pay focus" part to itself.

***

Glad the other stuff worked out.

So, here’s what I’ve come up with so far regarding companions;

1) Enforcers, Medics and Beasts now get the same 20+5/level Edge that Bodyguards do; but I also dropped the mechanic that made all of them (including the bodyguard) essentially unkillable while the PC is alive and the shared recovery mechanic.

Instead they get heroic surges that can only be used to Rally or avoid death and don’t have to pay focus to Rally. Right now the Enforcer and Medic get 5+END, the Beast gets 6+ and the Bodyguard 7+. To keep just throwing your best score into END, I also tweaked the attack action to use STR or REF for weapons or INT, PRE or WIT for implements.

2) Bodyguard got something of a nerf/side-grade. Interpose got dropped, but when they occupy your space they grant you cover (they can’t end in other allies’ spaces). It’s punishment mechanic changed from moving closer to or attacking you to the general Defender triggers of shifting or not targeting them (but doesn’t get the defender’s halting effect).

3) Enforcers changed from “crit vs. flat-footed” to a flat 4+1/2 level extra damage. Medics grant a free recovery check whenever they use Medicine or their bloodied healing action. Beasts now get to tailor their base movement like the beastmen do and have a couple extra points.

4) Bodyguards, enforcers and medics get the risk vs. reward mechanic. Including their miss chance their average damage dealt is about equal to a PCs Focus score at their level for bodyguards, medics and non-striker beasts and two-thirds of a Striker’s damage for the Enforcer. Throw in not getting your own minor action when they miss and the action economy should be about on target.

As a fun tangent, if the Bodyguard uses two minor action attacks during a turn (say because the PC is incapacitated or even dead), their damage output is essentially the same as for a blocker opponent of their level (their defenses and Edge scores also match) and the Enforcer doing the same matches the damage of a scrapper or scourge opponent of their level.

And since they have some surges of their own they can actually act as a backup PC (not the best, but not twiddling your thumbs waiting either) if something happens until the main PC is back in shape.

5) The next hurdle in this are the Warriors and how to balance their multiples against the lone companions. My first thought is that I need to change their role. Bodyguards are weak Guardians, Enforcers are weak Slayers and Medics are weak Enablers. So I’m thinking Warriors should actually be built collectively as weak Controllers. In this case I think they need to be based on the Summoner Aspect Auras in terms of effect in that they’re essentially small zones that need to make hit checks for their effects and instead of their type (men-at-arms, thugs or tribal warriors) being a buff to them, it should be a debuff to adjacent enemies.

I’m still trying to figure that part out, but wanted to give an update on the progress so far.

Having the Warriors be the controller companion is an inspired bit - the multiple members allow for multi-targeting in a way that a single nebulous controller wouldn't. It just makes sense. You can have the warriors attack the same target to inflict conditions, if it's not unbalanced.

The overall changes sound good.

Update on the warriors;

1) They get 4+END surges for avoiding death, their Rallies restore them to full Edge and they always count as bloodied for purposes of actions that restore Edge. Because of this you’re almost always going to want to use the bloodied healing abilities for them to conserve their surges and other than stabilizing them, letting your troops stay down becomes something a good leader will let happen.

The non-combat followers also got this feature, but remain so abysmal at fighting this is more a case of not instantly dying to things like death knights and general misfortune with being utterly unkillable despite poor management by the controlling player.

2) Warriors do NOT have the risk vs. reward mechanic just because the only way to keep the damage from being utterly trivial also makes it high enough when focused on a single target that getting any other minor action out of it is too much (one part of three separate attack rolls means that they actually score an average of 1.5 hits per attack vs. about 0.5 hits per attack for normal companions... so 3 average damage per attack is 6 per hit for a normal companion, but just 2 per hit for a trio of warriors).

That said, if you have another companion, you could use the bonus minor action from them to command the warriors and, if the dice cooperate, get attacks from yourself (main), your lieutenant (minor) and warriors (bonus minor) in a single turn.

3) The original traits for thugs (bonus damage if flat-footed), men-at-arms (defense boost for adjacent allies) and warbands (extra movement) have been replaced with hit conditions for their attacks. Thug hits inflict flat-footed (ENT), Men-at-arms push targets 1 pace and Warband hits inflict shaken (ENT). This gives them some minor, but mostly non-stacking, control effects in addition to the damage without allowing it to debilitate a single target with stacks of something like dazed or shadowed.

The original options can mostly be gained, at least for humans, via a bonus boon or talent so they’re still quite customizable.

Having fewer surges makes sense, given their numbers in comparison to the others. I also like the conditions inflicted.

Honestly, they were about the only options that qualified for the limits I wanted.

Dazed, Slowed and Shadowed all stack so having three attacks means either special rules (i.e. warrior conditions don’t stack) or not using those.

Vulnerable too has the issue of seriously upping the damage of subsequent hits.

Unsteady and Weakened both feel too strong.

That really just left shaken, flat-footed and forced movement as the ones available that fit the controller role.

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Surge-wise I picked the number for warriors based on the idea that, even if stabilized, you’d want to keep a dropped warrior out of the rest of the fight and, presuming an END 1, they can be dropped once per battle in a four encounter day and still have one surge left over.

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The real test I need to perform is a lieutenant and men-at-arms with a Mastermind to see how their effects shake out.